where legends are made

Visual Arts and Material Culture

Within the fields of Visual Arts and Material Culture, faculty members explore the aesthetic, social, historical, religious, and colonial contexts in which works of art and cultural objects have been created, produced, and manufactured by artists and artisans; including the collection, distribution, and perception of these objects across centuries and geographic locations. Focusing on the embedded stories and discursive practices that shape(d) objects, MLC faculty members research manuscripts, print and digital media; intermedial objects; paintings, sculptures, and illustrations; as well as their relation to topics such as politics, philosophy, gender, museal practices, and literature. 

Eighteenth and early nineteenth-century literature, intellectual history, philosophy

Matthew Feminella

Associate Professor of German, German Program Co-Director, Graduate Advisor, Fulbright Program Advisor, IGSEP and Study Abroad Advisor

Eighteenth and early nineteenth-century literature, intellectual history, philosophy

Johannes Fröhlich

Instructor of German, German Undergraduate Advisor (M-Z)

Romanticism to Postmodernism Intellectual history Philosophy Visual arts Women’s writing Minority literatures Holocaust studies German-Jewish literature Translation studies

Renata Fuchs


Instructor of German 

Romanticism to Postmodernism, intellectual history, philosophy, visual arts, women’s writing, minority literatures, Holocaust studies, German-Jewish literature, translation studies

medieval and early modern literature and theater; gender and women’s writing; literary representations of military-historical events; spectacle and performance; print and manuscript history; prophecy and eschatology; rhetoric; intersections of Italian, Spanish, and French cultural production

Jessica Goethals


Associate Professor of Italian 

Medieval and early modern literature and theater; gender and women’s writing; literary representations of military-historical events; spectacle and performance; print and manuscript history; prophecy and eschatology; rhetoric; intersections of Italian, Spanish, and French cultural production 

 

 

modern and contemporary Italian literature, culture, philosophy, and history, literary criticism, aesthetics, phenomenology, and gender and trauma studies

Alessandra Montalbano

Associate Professor of Italian

Modern and contemporary Italian literature, culture, philosophy, and history, literary criticism, aesthetics, phenomenology, and gender and trauma studies

Francesc Morales


Instructor of Spanish 
Italian cinema in a transnational context, film history and theory, screenwriting practices, international co-productions, collaborative authorship, contemporary Italian literature, postcolonial studies, mixed- and intermedia

Claudia Romanelli

Associate Professor of Italian, Italian Program Director, Italian Undergraduate Advisor

Italian cinema in a transnational context, film history and theory, screenwriting practices, international co-productions, collaborative authorship, contemporary Italian literature, postcolonial studies, mixed- and intermedia

Catherine Van Helsema

Catherine Van Helsema

Instructor of German