Jewish Studies Network
Frank Salomon
Title/Position
John V. Murra Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, UW-Madison; Adjunct Professor, Anthropology, University of Iowa
Kathy Lavezzo
Title/Position
Professor, English
Kirsten E. Kumpf Baele
Title/Position
Director, Anne Frank Initiative
Distinguished Associate Professor of Instruction, German
Kirsten E. Kumpf Baele is the Director of the Anne Frank Initiative (AFI) and a Distinguished Associate Professor of Instruction in German at the University of Iowa. Her work centers around human experiences and social justice, as reflected in her research, teaching, and public engagement. Her academic career has consistently been shaped by stories and lived experiences that highlight social inequalities, constraints, and the potential for personal transformation.
Research & Publications: Kumpf Baele’s research includes topics such as exophonic writers, the spatial turn in literature, the aesthetics and politics of hair in prewar film, forced adoption practices and control of the female body in Belgian film, crises of masculinity in the military, embodied pedagogy as it connects with service-learning projects, and the limitation of filmic and architectural freedoms in the former GDR. She is co-editor of Engaging Anne Frank and Other Difficult Life Stories (Routledge, forthcoming 2024), and her chapter “Auf Wiedersehen, Soldat: Does a Soldier Ever Truly Return Home” was recently accepted for publication in 2025 by Routledge-Warwick.
Public Engagement: She was deeply honored by the selection of her application to plant the 13th Anne Frank sapling on the University of Iowa campus in 2022. In addition to her community-engaged work surrounding Anne Frank and her story, Kumpf Baele has developed programming and/or taught for the Iowa City Public Library’s Teen Center, Theater Cedar Rapids, the Iowa Youth Writing Project, Clear Creek Amana middle- and high schools, Jefferson High School in Cedar Rapids, and most recently the UNESCO City of Literature. In 2022, she was awarded the “Outstanding Public Engagement Award” from the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Daniel Khalastchi
Title/Position
Director, Magid Center for Undergraduate Writing
Elizabeth Heineman
Title/Position
Co-Director, Jewish Studies Network
Professor, History & Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies
Elke Heckner
Title/Position
Lecturer, German
Loren Glass
Title/Position
Professor & DEO, English
Miriam Gilbert
Title/Position
Professor Emeritus, English
Robert Cargill
Title/Position
Associate Professor of Classics and Biblical Studies
Ari Ariel
Title/Position
Co-Director, Jewish Studies Network
Director, International Studies
Associate Professor of Instruction, International Studies & History
Aron Aji
Title/Position
Director of MFA in Literary Translation
Associate Professor of Instruction, Literary Translation
Aron Aji, Director of MFA in Literary Translation, has joined the faculty in 2014. A native of Turkey, he has translated works by Bilge Karasu, Murathan Mungan, Elif Shafak, LatifeTekin, and other Turkish writers, including Karasu’s The Garden of Departed Cats, (2004 National Translation Award); and A Long Day’s Evening, (NEA Literature Fellowship; short-list, 2013 PEN Translation Prize). His forthcoming translations include Ferid Edgü’s Wounded Age and Eastern Tales (NYRB, 2022), and Mungan’s Tales of Valor (co-translated with David Gramling) (Global Humanities Translation Prize, Northwestern UP, 2022). Aji was president of The American Literary Translators Association between 2016-2019. He leads the Translation Workshop, and teaches courses on retranslation, poetry and translation; theory, and contemporary Turkish literature.
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