Fields of interest of professors

ARABIC

May TELMISSANY - PhD, University of Montréal

• Arab cinema and culture
• Intercultural relations and transnationalism
• Cultural and Transcultural Studies
• Literary theory
• Film theory

 

ASIAN STUDIES

Sufeng XU - PhD, McGill University

• Classical Chinese poetry
• Classical and vernacular Chinese fiction
• Gender and Women’s writing
• Intellectual history in imperial China 

 

CELTIC

Paul W. BIRT - PhD, University of Wales, Bangor

• Modern Welsh Literature
• The Welsh in Argentina
• Early Celtic Narrative

 

GERMAN

Joerg ESLEBEN - PhD, University of Rochester

Research Interests

• German and comparative culture studies
• Intercultural studies
• Theatre

Selected Publications

Esleben, Joerg with Rolf Rohmer and David G. John. Fritz Bennewitz in India: Intercultural Theatre with Brecht and Shakespeare. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016.

This book offers the first comprehensive documentation and analysis of the work of East German theatre director Fritz Bennewitz in India from the 1970s to 1990s. It demonstrates that Bennewitz developed a unique kind of intercultural theatre practice based on genuine mutual respect and exchange.

Esleben, Joerg. “Faustian Tesserae in the Cultural Mosaic: Contemporary Canadian Interplay with Goethe’s Faust.” Goethe’s Faust and Cultural Memory: Comparatist Interfaces. Ed. Lorna Fitzsimmons. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2012, 129-148.

Esleben, Joerg. “Goethe’s Faust in Canada, 1834-1970.” Refractions of Germany in Canadian Literature and Culture. Ed. Heinz Antor, Sylvia Brown, John Considine, and Klaus Stierstorfer. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2003, 331-41.

These two articles explore the reception and creative appropriation of Goethe’s Faust dramas in Canadian culture from the 19^th to the 21^st centuries.

Current Research

Joerg Esleben is continuing his research project on theatrical relations between Germany and India. After the recent publication of his book on the work of Fritz Bennewitz in India, he is now analyzing the productions that Indian director Vijaya Mehta created in Germany in collaboration with Bennewitz. He is also carrying out exploratory research for a project on artistic conceptions of social justice.

 

Agatha SCHWARTZ - PhD, Queen's University

• Women's studies and gender studies
• 20th and 21st century German literature and culture
• Central and East European literature and culture

 

ITALIAN

Cristina PERISSINOTTO - PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Italian studies
• Utopia
• The Italian renaissance
• Travel discourse and narratives

Franco RICCI - PhD, University of Toronto

• Contemporary Italian literature and aesthetics
• Narrative discourse and visual representation
• Italian contemporary culture

 

PORTUGUESE

José Pedro ABREU FERREIRA

• Portuguese literature and culture

 

RUSSIAN AND POLISH

Arkadi KLIOUTCHANSKI

• Russian literature and culture

Richard SOKOLOSKI - PhD, University of Toronto

• Polish language and literature
• Russian Literature

 

Emeriti / Retired

J. Douglas CLAYTON - PhD, Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Russian romanticism
• Pushkin
• Chekhov
• Russian theatre since 1895

Andrew DONSKOV - PhD, University of Helsinki

• Russian languages and literatures
• Tolstoy
• Doukhobors

 

SPANISH

Luis ABANTO - PhD, University of Ottawa

• Second Language Pedagogy
• Latin American literature and culture

Rosalia CORNEJO-PARRIEGO - PhD, Pennsylvania State University

• Contemporary Spanish literature (narrative)
• Literary theory
• Gender and cultural studies
• Contemporary Latin-American literature

Jorge Carlos GUERRERO - PhD, University of Toronto

• Latin American intellectual history and cultural production
• Comparative studies between Brazil and Spanish America

Gaston LILLO - PhD, University of Montreal

• Latino American literature and cinema

James NELSON NOVOA - PhD, Universidad de Valencia

• Medieval and Early Modern Spanish and Portuguese culture
• Conversos and the Sephardic diaspora

Juana MUNOZ-LICERAS - PhD, University of Toronto

• Language acquisition
• Spanish and general linguistics
• Psycholinguistics, contrastive and descriptive grammar

Elena VALENZUELA - PhD, McGill University

• Spanish linguistics
• Second Language Acquisition

 

Emeriti / Retired

Fernando DE DIEGO - PhD, University of Montreal

• XXth Century Spanish Peninsular Literature
• Literary Theory
• XXth Century Spanish and Latin-American Women Writers
• Theatre Discourse

José Ruano DE LA HAZA - PhD, University of London

• Spanish literature
• History of theatre
• Textual criticism

 

YIDDISH

Rebecca MARGOLIS - PhD, Columbia University

• Canadian Yiddish culture
• Yiddish language and literature
• Canadian Jewish Studies