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Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature

Distinguished Faculty

Elena M. Martínez, Department Chair,
Professor (Ph.D., New York University) Spanish & Comp. Lit. 20th Century Latin American Literature; Latin American-Women's Writing; Gay and Lesbian Literature.

Ruth Adler
Professor (Ph.D., New York University) Hebrew and Comp. Lit. Hebrew Literature; Jewish-American and Yiddish Literature; Sociopsychological Approaches to Literature; Pedagogy.

Esther Allen
Assistant Professor (Ph.D., New York University) Literary Translation, Translation Studies, Ecolinguistics, 19th and 20th-century Latin American Literature, 19th & 20th-century French literature.

Isolina Ballesteros
Assistant Professor (Ph.D., Boston University): 19th and 20th Century Spanish (Peninsular) and Comparative Literature; Contemporary Spanish Cultural Studies; Women's Studies; Immigration Studies; European Cinema.

Olga Casanova-Burgess
Professor (Ph.D., City University of New York): Spanish & Comp. Lit. Spanish American Literature; Caribbean Literature; Latin American Women Studies; Puerto Rican Narrative; Puerto Rican Poetry.

David Cruz de Jesús
Associate Professor (Ph.D. The University at Albany, SUNY): Hispanic Linguistics, General Linguistics, Puerto Rican Dialectology and Lexicology, Heritage Language Education, Foreign Language Pedagogy, and Second Language Acquisition.

place holder Antonietta D'Amelio
Full-Time Lecturer (Ph.D. , ABD, New York University): Contemporary Italian Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century.

Wayne Finke
Associate Professor (Ph.D., New York University): Spanish & Comp. Lit. Medieval Spanish Literature & History of the Language; 18th -19th Century Spanish Literature; García Lorca's Theater & Poetry; Contemporary Cuban Literature.

Gayana Jurkevich
Professor (Ph.D., New York University): Spanish & Comp. Lit. 19th & 20th Century Literature of Spain; History of Ideas; Ekphrasis; Literary Theory.

Meir Lubetski
Professor (Ph.D., New York University): Hebrew & Comp. Lit. Ancient Near East Languages and Literature; The Bible World; Past Biblical and Rabbinic Literature.

Ali Nematollahy
Associate Professor (Ph.D., CUNY Graduate Center): 19th Century French literature.

Jeffrey M. Peck
Professor (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) and Dean of the Weissman School Research interests: German Jewish relations, particularly post 1945, literature and anthropology, literary and cultural theory, minority and diaspora studies, gender.

Debra Popkin
Professor (Ph.D., Columbia University): French & Comp. Lit. 20th Century French Drama; Foreign Language Pedagogy; Francophone African Literature.

Isabel Cid Sirgado
Professor (Ph.D., New York University): Spanish & Comp. Lit. 18th Century Spanish Literature; Second Language Acquisition; Comparative Literature.

Noriko Watanabe
Assistant Professor (Ph.D., State University of New York at Buffalo): Japanese linguistics, pragmatics, oral storytelling, Japanese literature and language, Japanese orthography, literacy theories on humor, and sociolinguistics.

Ping Xu
Associate Professor (Ph.D., State University of New York, Binghamton): Chinese literature, language, and culture, Daoism, and comparative literature.

Zhiquang (John) Yu
Associate Professor (Ph.D., University of Washington): Chinese and Japanese. Chinese Classic Novels; Chinese Classic Poetry; History of Chinese Culture; Classic and Modern Chinese Linguistics.

Franco Zangrilli
Professor (Ph.D., Rutgers University): Italian and Comp. Lit. 19th & 20th Century Italian Literature; Poetry & Narrative of Italian Renaissance; Pirandello and Italian Literature.