Release date: Nov. 18, 2004
Contact: Elaine Justice at 404-727-0643 or elaine.justice@emory.edu

Renowned Scholar Sander Gilman Joins Emory

Renowned cultural and literary historian Sander Gilman will join the faculty of Emory University as Distinguished Professor of the Arts and Sciences. Emory Provost Earl Lewis announced the appointment, subject to approval by the university's board of trustees. Gilman is scheduled to begin his tenure July 1, 2005.

"Sander Gilman is an internationally recognized scholar of immense stature and accomplishment," says Lewis. "He brings a broad commitment to interdisciplinary work, a foundation in the humanities, and a view on the world that will benefit our students and enrich our intellectual community as we build for the future."

Robert Paul, dean of Emory College, where Gilman will be based, said that Gilman "stands in the very first rank of contemporary cultural historians. What is truly remarkable is how well his vast array of research interests connects with outstanding programs at Emory that will be strengthened by his presence—comparative literature; German studies; science and society; health, culture and society; Jewish studies; psychoanalytic studies; disability studies, and many more."

Gilman, 60, currently is Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences and of Medicine at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He is on leave this year as the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor of European Comparative Literature at Oxford University.

In an interview, Gilman said he was attracted by "the diversity of faculty and programs at Emory and the opportunity to interact with graduate students and colleagues in a number of departments. I am taken by the wide range of exciting scholars and engaged students at Emory, who are committed to interdisciplinary scholarship."

Gilman will be teaching a two-semester course next fall on the history of diets and dieting. He said he hopes that the course will bring together graduate and undergraduate students from different disciplines and schools across the university. Students of all levels will be doing original research, as the end product of the course will be a collaborative book on diets and dieting for a major American publisher. "The idea is to learn how to do research, how to write and how to think critically and to have something at the end that is a real contribution to knowledge, not just an exercise filed away in the trash can," he says.

A prolific scholar, Gilman is the author of more than 70 books. His most recent edited volume, "SMOKE: A Global History of Smoking" (with Zhou Xun of the University of London) was published this month by Reaktion Books. His first biography, "Jurek Becker: A Life in Five Worlds," appeared in 2003, and his widely reviewed monograph, "Fat Boys: A Slim Book," appeared in 2004. He is the author of the basic study of the visual stereotyping of the mentally ill, "Seeing the Insane" (1982, reprinted 1996), as well as the standard study of "Jewish Self-Hatred," published in 1986. He also currently is interested in pursuing the question of "whether the experience of Jews in Europe during the 19th century can teach us something about the conflicts and changes facing Muslims there today."

For 25 years, Gilman was a member of the humanities and medical faculties at Cornell University, where he held the Goldwin Smith Professorship of Humane Studies. For six years he held the Henry R. Luce Distinguished Service Professorship of the Liberal Arts in Human Biology at the University of Chicago.

He has served as a visiting scholar at the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Md.; a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, Calif.; as a Berlin prize fellow at the American Academy in Berlin; and as a visiting professor at more than a dozen other prestigious universities here and abroad. He was president of the Modern Language Association in 1995. He holds an honorary degree from the University of Toronto and was elected an honorary professor of the Free University in Berlin.

EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: A black and white photo is available.

Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. For nearly two decades Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

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