Contact Us
Phone: 650-725-0061
Email: mlaprogram@stanford.edu
Master of Liberal Arts Program
Margaret Jacks Hall
450 Jane Stanford Way, Building 460
Stanford, CA 94305
**The MLA office is currently closed to visitors. Please contact us by phone or email for assistance.
Who We Are
Linda Paulson
Associate Dean and Director, MLA Program
- Develops curriculum for the MLA program
- Provides academic and policy advising for MLA students
- Teaches in the program and directs the MLA thesis course
Linda Paulson has her PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA. She has taught at Stanford since 1985. Her research focuses on the Victorian social novel, particularly on the works of Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Anthony Trollope; and on the development of the British woman's novel from Jane Austen to Doris Lessing. She has received Stanford's Dinkelspiel Award for distinguished teaching and service to Stanford.
Paula Findlen
Ubaldo Pierotti Professor of History and Professor, by courtesy, of French and Italian
- Faculty Director, MLA Program
Paula Findlen has directed the Suppes Center for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, the Science, Technology and Society Program, and is co-founder of the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Stanford. Her publications include Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (University of California Press, 1994), Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything (Routledge, 2004) and most recently Leonardo’s Library: The World of a Renaissance Reader (Stanford University Library, 2019), Empires of Knowledge: Scientific Networks in the Early Modern World (Routledge, 2019), Early Modern Things: Objects and Their Histories, 1500-1800, 2nd edition (Routledge, 2021) Camilla Erculiani, Letters on Natural Philosophy, ed. Eleonora Carinci, trans. Hannah Marcus, foreword by Paula Findlen (ITER, 2021), and Embodied Knowledge: Women and Science before Silicon Valley (2023). Her essays have appeared in publications such as The Nation, TLS Higher Education Supplement, Chronicle of Higher Education, LA Review of Books, The Public Domain Review and Boston Review. A Guggenheim Fellow and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she received the 2016 Premio Galileo for her contributions to Italian culture. Findlen has taught in the MLA Program for about twenty-five years and loves the intellectual energy, dedication, and community of its students, alumni, and faculty.
Michelle Bennett
Associate Director, MLA Program
- Oversees MLA admissions
- Provides policy, enrollment, and tuition advising for students
- Provides faculty and alumni support
Michelle Bennett provides policy and administrative support to potential students, current students, alumni, and faculty. She also oversees the program’s finances and is the administrative liaison with the University. Michelle began at Stanford in 2002 with the Alumni Travel/Study program, and has been with the MLA program since 2005. She earned her degree in Business Administration from Southern Oregon University.
Maddy Elles-Hill
Marketing and Program Coordinator
- Coordinates MLA events throughout the year
- Develops and administers marketing and social media campaigns
- Designs and develops the MLA advertising materials, journals and imagery
Maddy brings to the role years of experience in the film and media world, both in the US and the UK. She is currently a student in the MLA Program, too.
Peter Kline
Writing Instructor and Coordinator
- Teaches the thesis-writing workshop for students in the final phase of the program
- Works with first-year students on the fundamentals of argumentative writing
- Coordinates student colloquia for the presentation of master’s theses
Peter Kline has served as the Writing Instructor and Coordinator for Stanford’s Master of Liberal Arts Program since 2015. He has taught writing at the university level since 2004, having also held positions at the University of Virginia, James Madison University, and the University of San Francisco, as well as with Stanford’s undergraduate and continuing studies programs. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford, Kline holds a B.A. in English/Creative Writing from Northwestern University and an M.F.A. in Poetry Writing from the University of Virginia. He has published two collections of poetry, Deviants (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2013) and Mirrorforms (Parlor Press/Free Verse Editions, 2020).
