MLA Faculty

Portrait of Paula Findlen


"There is nothing like teaching a group of mature students who come to an evening seminar after a full day of having a life outside of the university. They are among the best, most engaged students I have worked with."

—Paula Findlen, Ubaldo Pierotti Professor of History and, by courtesy, of French and Italian

Study with Stanford Faculty

Pillar

Stanford's faculty is one of the most distinguished in the nation. It includes 20 Nobel laureates, 4 Pulitzer Prize winners, 7 National Medal of Science recipients, 193 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 325 members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, 114 members of the National Academy of Engineering, and 29 members of the National Academy of Education.

MLA faculty, who are recruited from among Stanford University’s most distinguished professors, are eager to share their own enthusiasm for their subjects with this group of students. In the small group setting of MLA seminars, students have the opportunity to get to know their professors in a way that many students have never before experienced.

The following faculty will be teaching, or have recently taught, for the MLA Program:

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

B

  • Photograph of Patricia Blessing

    Patricia Blessing

    Associate Professor, Art & Art History
    • MLA 401: The Crusades: A Cross-Cultural History
  • Photo of Scott Bukatman

    Scott Bukatman

    Professor of Film and Media Studies

    Scott Bukatman is a cultural theorist and Professor of Film and Media Studies at Stanford University. His research explores how such popular media as film, comics, and animation mediate between new technologies and human perceptual and bodily experience.
    https://art.stanford.edu/people/scott-bukatman

    • MLA 389: Childish Enthusiasms and Perishable Manias

C

  • Photograph of Joel Cabrita

    Joel Cabrita

    Professor of History and, by courtesy, of Religious Studies
    • MLA 396: The Cultural Cold Wars: The CIA, the Arts, and Global Cultural Networks
  • James T. Campbell

    James T. Campbell

    Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History
    Professor Campbell’s research focuses on African American History and the wider history of the black Atlantic.
    • MLA 330: Topics in African American History and Culture 
    • MLA 344: Making and Unmaking of Apartheid: Topics in South African History 
    • MLA 351: The Civil Rights Movement in History and Memory Faculty leader for the 2019 MLA South Africa trip

D

  • Alberto Diaz-Cayeros

    Alberto Diaz-Cayeros

    Senior Fellow, Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law and Director, Center for Latin American Studies
  • Photograph of Rowan Dorin

    Rowan Dorin

    Associate Professor of History; Director, Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies
    • MLA 395: Blood and Money: The Origins of Antisemitism
  • Bill H. Durham

    Bill H. Durham

    Bing Professor in Human Biology, Department of Anthropology, and Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment
    Professor Durham is an acclaimed human ecologist; among his specialties is indigenous ecotourism, and his contributions include co-founding the Center for Responsible Travel.
    • MLA 314: Social and Environmental Sustainability: The Costa Rican Case 
    • MLA 299: Evolution and Conservation in the Galapagos Faculty leader for the 2015 MLA Costa Rica trip Faculty leader for the 2013 MLA Galapagos trip  

F

  • Paula Findlen

    Paula Findlen

    Ubaldo Pierotti Professor of History and Professor, by courtesy, of French and Italian
    Professor Findlen specializes in Italian history, 1300-1800, and the early history of science and medicine.
    • MLA 347: Rome: From Pilgrimage to the Grand Tour
    • MLA 298: Heretics, Prostitutes, and Merchants: The Venetian Empire
    • MLA 322: Coffee, Sugar, and Chocolate: Commodities and Consumption in World History

    1200-1800 Member of the MLA Faculty Advisory Committee

G

  • Denise Gigante

    Denise Gigante

    Professor of English
    Professor Gigante teaches British Romanticism, as well as the longer historical tradition of poetry and poetics.
    • MLA 306: The Young RomanticsMLA 338: William Blake: An Exploration of the Illuminated Poetry
    • MLA 355: Dante and the Romantics

H

  • Photograph or Gabrielle Hecht

    Gabrielle Hecht

    Professor of History, and by courtesy, of Anthropology
    • MLA 385: Trashed! Global History of Garbage and Our Planet's Predicament

J

  • Photo of Branislav Jakovljevic

    Branislav Jakovljević

    The Sara Hart Kimball Professor in the Humanities; Artistic Director
    • MLA 382: Learning from the Absurd: Drama for the Age of Anxiety
  • Charles Junkerman

    Charles Junkerman

    Associate Provost and Dean Emeritus, Continuing Studies
    Dr. Junkerman teaches courses on American literature as well as cultural studies and cultural history from the Enlightenment to the present.
    • MLA 346: Into the Woods with Thoreau
    • MLA 256: Brian Friel’s Human Comedy

K

  • Photograph of Michael Kahan

    Michael Kahan

    Co-Director of Urban Studies; Lecturer in Urban Studies and Sociology
    • MLA 207P: MLA Practicum: The History of San Francisco through (Mostly) Primary Sources
  • Ari Kelman

    Ari Kelman

    Associate Professor of Education and, by courtesy, of Religious Studies
    Professor Kelman's research focuses on the myriad ways in which people cultivate religious commitments. His research focuses on the ways that people learn religion across domains including schools, congregations, museums, camps, media, and online. 
    • MLA 353: The Fourth R: Religion, Education, and Schooling in America
  • Photograph of Alexander Key

    Alexander Key

    Associate Professor of Comparative Literature
    • MLA 393: Palestine in Literature and Film
  • Mykel Kochenderfer

    Mykel Kochenderfer

    Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
    Professor Kochenderfer is the director of the Stanford Intelligent Systems Laboratory (SISL), and is affiliated with the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) and the Human-Centered AI Institute. Of particular interest to him are systems for air traffic control, unmanned aircraft, and automated driving.
    • MLA 373: Artificial Intelligence and Society
  • Nancy Kollman

    Nancy Kollmann

    William H. Bonsall Professor of History
    Professor Kollmann’s research focuses on how politics worked in early modern Russian autocracy.
    • MLA 305: Russia Encounters the Enlightenment: The Arts, Culture, and PoliticsMember of the MLA Faculty Advisory Committee
  • Jon Krosnick image

    Jon Krosnick

    Frederic O. Glover Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor of Communication and of Political Science, at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and, by courtesy, of Psychology

L

  • Pavle Levi

    Pavle Levi

    Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies
    Professor Levi's primary areas of research and teaching include Eastern Europe cinema, aesthetics and ideology, and experimental cinema. He is also the faculty director of the Stanford Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies.
  • Joseph Lipsick

    Joseph Lipsick

    Professor of Pathology, Genetics, and Biology (by courtesy)
    Professor Lipsick specializes in cancer genetics, and researches how mistakes in genes cause cancer.  
    • MLA 358: The Intersection of Medicine, Science, Public Policy, and Ethics: Cancer as a Case Study
  • Photograph of Emanuele Lugli

    Emanuele Lugli

    Assistant Professor of Art and Art History
    • MLA 392: Morality and the Visual Arts

M

  • Photograph of Amichai Magen

    Amichai Magen

    Senior Research Scholar, Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Lecturer in International Relations
    • MLA 400: International Order and Disorder
  • Peter Mann

    Peter Mann

    Lecturer in MLA and CSP
    Peter Mann is a historian of modern Europe with a focus on 19th- and 20th-century literature and thought.
    • MLA 101A: Foundations I
    • MLA 101B: Foundations II
    • MLA 101C: Foundations III
  • Thomas S. Mullaney

    Thomas S. Mullaney

    Associate Professor of Modern Chinese History
    Professor Mullaney teaches courses on Chinese history and is the author of Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China and The Chinese Typewriter.
    • MLA 310: Modern Chinese History

P

  • Grant Parker

    Grant Parker

    Associate Professor of Classics
    Professor Parker teaches Latin as well as Roman imperial culture.
    • MLA 324: What is a Map? 
    • MLA 303: Cultures of Collecting
  • Linda Paulson

    Linda Paulson

    Associate Dean and Director, MLA Program
    Dr. Paulson’s research focuses on 19th-century British, French, and German literature.
    • MLA 102: Introduction to Interdisciplinary Graduate Study
    • MLA 398: MLA Thesis in Progress

R

  • Photograph of Steven Roberts

    Steven O. Roberts

    Associate Professor of Psychology
    • MLA 205P: MLA Practicum: The Psychology of Racism

S

  • Robert Siegel

    Robert Siegel

    Professor (Teaching) of Microbiology and Immunology
    Professor Siegel teaches courses on the environment, and the impact of environmental factors on infectious disease.
    • MLA 326: Nature through Photography
    • MLA 352: Virus in the NewsMember of the MLA Faculty Advisory Committee
  • Matthew Sommer

    Matthew Sommer

    Bowman Family Professor of History and, by courtesy, of East Asian Languages and Cultures
  • Stephen J. Stedman

    Stephen J. Stedman

    Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute For International Studies, and, Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science

T

  • Elaine Treharne

    Elaine Treharne

    Roberta Bowman Denning Professor of Humanities
    Professor Treharne’s research focuses on Early British manuscripts.
    • MLA 342: The Human Story in the Archives
    • MLA 334: The Material Book: Ancient and Modern

V

  • Blakey Vermeule

    Blakey Vermeule

    Professor of English
    Professor Vermeule’s research includes cognitive and evolutionary approaches to art, philosophy and literature, British literature, and the history of the novel.
    • MLA 339: The Human Predicament in Three Masterpieces
  • Peter Vitousek

    Peter Vitousek

    Clifford G. Morrison Professor in Population and Resource Studies, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Earth System Science
    Professor Vitousek's research interests are in the areas of conservation biology and ecology.
    • MLA 297: Islands as Model Systems: Geology, Evolution, Ecology, and Human Societies

W

  • Ban Wang

    William Haas Professor of Chinese Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of Comparative Literature

  • Kären Wigen

    Frances & Charles Field Professor in History
    • MLA 384: Maps in the Early Modern World
  • Michael Wilcox

    Michael Wilcox

    Senior Lecturer in Native American Studies
    Dr. Wilcox has been on the faculty of Stanford since 2001, first as an Assistant and Associate professor of Anthropology and currently as a Senior Lecturer in Native American Studies in the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. 
    • MLA 359: The Big Shift: Demographic and Social Change in America
  • Caroline Winterer

    Caroline Winterer

    Professor of History and, by courtesy, of Classics
    Professor Winterer is an intellectual and cultural historian of early America in its transatlantic contexts.
    • MLA 295: The American Enlightenment

  • Mikael Wolfe

    Associate Professor of History

Stanford campus