NEWS

The new Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill has a new director, Dr. Jonathan M. Hess, a leading authority on Jewish history and culture in Germany. His appointment by the College of Arts and Sciences is effective July 1.

Hess, professor of German and adjunct professor of religious studies, has been a member of the UNC faculty since 1993. He is the author of numerous journal articles and two major books: "Germans, Jews and the Claims of Modernity" (Yale University Press, 2002) and "Reconstituting the Body Politic: Enlightenment, Public Culture and the Invention of Aesthetic Autonomy" (Wayne State University Press, 1999).

A graduate of Yale University, he received a doctoral degree in comparative literature and literary theory from the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 and a master's degree in German from the Johns Hopkins University in 1989.

The Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, an interdisciplinary research and teaching center designed to explore Jewish history, culture and religion in the United States and abroad, was launched in

March when the university approved a new undergraduate minor in Jewish studies to begin this fall. Plans call for an undergraduate major in the near future.

Based in the College of Arts and Sciences, the center draws on relevant faculty strengths in many disciplines, including English, Germanic languages, history, political science, religious studies and Slavic languages and literatures.

The center will offer undergraduate and graduate courses, create and disseminate new research, and convene public conferences and lectures featuring leading scholars of the Jewish experience in the United States, Europe, Israel and beyond.

Hess replaces the center’s founding director Dr. Jonathan Hartlyn, professor of political science, who helped to develop the program during the past year.

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Hackney to aid Kosovo higher education efforts

Dr. Anthony Hackney, professor of exercise and sport science and professor of nutrition, will spend part of the summer teaching classes on human physiology and metabolism at the University of Pristina in Kosovo. He will participate in a program sponsored by the government of the Netherlands, the European Union and the United Nations to aid higher education in Kosovo.

"The 1998 war in the Balkans severely disrupted the higher education system in Kosovo," Hackney said. "The program is an attempt to aid students and faculty at the University of Pristina so they can improve and update certain areas of studies. In particular, the program will help those students who have been unable to finish their university degrees due to the war and its aftermath."

About 30 professors from around the world have been invited to take part in the program during July and August.

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College of Arts and Sciences contact: Dee Reid (919) 843-6339, dee_reid@unc.edu
News Services contact: David Williamson, (919) 962-8596