Five new department and program heads have been named in Arts & Sciences.
Jean Allman, Ph.D., the J.H. Hexter Professor in the Humanities in Arts & Sciences, succeeds Hillel J. Kieval, Ph.D., the Goldstein Professor of Jewish History and Thought, as chair of the Department of History.
Daniel M. Bornstein, Ph.D., the Stella Koetter Darrow Professor of Catholic Studies in Arts & Sciences, succeeds Beata Grant, Ph.D., professor of Chinese and of religious studies in Arts & Sciences, as chair of the Program in Religious Studies, effective Jan. 1, 2010.
Garrett Albert Duncan, Ph.D., associate professor of education in Arts & Sciences, succeeds John Baugh, Ph.D., the Margaret Bush Wilson Professor in Arts & Sciences, as director of the program in African and African American studies.
Judith Evans-Grubbs, Ph.D., professor of classics, succeeds Susan Rotroff, Ph.D., the Jarvis Thurston and Mona Van Duyn Professor in the Humanities, as chair of the Department of Classics.
In addition, Gaylyn Studlar, Ph.D., professor of film and media studies, succeeded Charles Barr in the Program in Film & Media Studies Jan. 1.
Jean Allman, History
Allman joined the history department in 2007 and was installed as the inaugural holder of the J.H. Hexter Professorship in the Humanities in Arts & Sciences in February 2008.
Her work is interdisciplinary in scope and addresses issues of interest to African and African American studies as well as women, gender and sexuality studies.
As an eminent historian of West Africa, her research explores the concepts of national identity, gender and colonialism; fashion and the politics of clothing; and the modernity of indigenous belief systems. Central to her work is the study of African contributions to the modern world.
Allman is the author or editor of six books and numerous articles and book chapters. Among the publications she has authored or co-authored are “Tongnaab: The History of a West African God” and “‘I Will Not Eat Stone’: A Women’s History of Colonial Asante.”
She also has co-edited the Journal of Women’s History as well as two critically received book series “The Social History of Africa” and “New African Histories.” Her professional contributions include serving as a member of the board of directors of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (2005-2011) and of the African Studies Association (2003-07).
Allman earned a bachelor’s degree Phi Beta Kappa in history in 1979 and a doctorate in African history in 1987, both from Northwestern University.
Prior to joining WUSTL, Allman directed the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2003-06. She began her academic career at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
Daniel M. Bornstein, Religious Studies
Bornstein is a leading historian of religion in late-medieval and Renaissance Italy, of orthodox religious practice, and of the role of women in the Catholic Church.
He is well-known in academic circles for his study of the history of religion, specifically his ability to question the nature of religious life within the context of the traditional church.
Bornstein has authored or edited three books in addition to numerous articles, book chapters, conference papers and invited lectures.
He has translated several medieval texts and is currently editing a volume on medieval Christianity for a seven-volume project called “A People’s History of Christianity,” the first volume of which was published in 2008.
His research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society and the National Humanities Center, among others.
Professional involvement includes the American Society of Church History, the American Catholic Historical Association and the Society for Italian Historical Studies. He sits on the editorial boards of Rivista di Storia del Cristianesimo and Medievalia et Humanistica.
He earned a doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1985.
Garrett Albert Duncan, African & African American Studies
Duncan holds appointments in American culture studies, African and African American studies and urban studies, all in Arts & Sciences. His research focuses broadly on race, culture, education and society.
Along these lines, he has published extensively on black youth, identity, language, ethics and schooling in peer-reviewed journals, edited books, encyclopedias and other reference books.
His current project, “Race and Schooling in a Prison Society” examines the moral and political contexts of the education of black students in urban and suburban schools in post-Civil Rights Era North America.
This project is largely concerned with questions of race, citizenship and democracy in the contexts of post-industrialism and globalization and how these forces inform a school-to-prison pipeline.
Duncan is the immediate past vice president of Division G: Social Contexts of Education of the American Educational Research Association.
He earned a doctorate in education from The Claremont Graduate School.
Judith Evans-Grubbs, Classics
Evans-Grubbs is a leading scholar in the field of Roman history.
Her most recent book, “Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: A Sourcebook on Marriage, Divorce, and Widowhood,” collects, translates and discusses Latin and Greek sources for women’s interaction with the law in the Roman Empire.
Her current project is a book titled “Children without Fathers in Roman Law: Paternity, Patrimony, and Freedom,” which looks at children without a paterfamilias — children whose fathers have died, illegitimate children, children who were abandoned at birth and children who were sold or pledged into slavery by their impoverished parents.
Such children often existed in a very precarious position legally and socially, born free but liable to enslavement and exploitation.
She earned a doctorate in classics from Stanford University in 1987.
Gaylyn Studlar, Film & Media Studies
Studlar has written widely on feminist film theory and history, Hollywood cinema, genre studies, Orientalism and the relationship between film and other arts.
Her books include “This Mad Masquerade: Stardom” and “Masculinity in the Jazz Age and In the Realm of Pleasure: Von Sternberg, Dietrich, and the Masochistic Aesthetic.”
In addition, she has co-edited four anthologies: “John Ford Made Westerns,” “Visions of the East,” “Reflections in a Male Eye: John Huston and the American Experience” and “Titanic: Anatomy of a Blockbuster.” Her work has been translated into several languages.
She recently completed articles on masculinity in the documentaries of Michael Moore; mother/daughter discourse in 1920s Hollywood fan culture; the “textual queering” of Elizabeth Taylor as a child star; and on silent era “vampire” Theda Bara.
She is working on the book “Precious Charms: The Juvenation of Female Stardom in Classical Hollywood Cinema” for the University of California Press.
Studlar earned a doctorate in cinema studies in 1984 from the University of Southern California, where she also earned a master of music in cello performance.
She recently taught for 13 years at the University of Michigan, serving as the Rudolf Arnheim Collegiate Professor of Film Studies. She also served as director of the Program in Film and Media Studies.
Prior to that, she spent eight years on the faculty at Emory University.