John A. McCarthy is Professor of German & Comparative Literature and Professor of European Studies at Vanderbilt University, where he has taught since 1991. He served for more than ten years as Director of Graduate Studies in German. From 2005-2006 he was Associate Director of the Max Kade Center (MKC) for European and German Studies and then from 2006-2009 Director of the MKC at Vanderbilt University. During that time, he worked closely with Europeanists from across campus, expanded the Center’s outreach activities, secured major grants, increased course offerings, tripled the number of majors, increased faculty involvement in European Studies, and enhanced the MKC’s national and international profile.
Before joining the Vanderbilt faculty, McCarthy was Assistant/Associate/Full Professor of German & Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, which awarded him an honorary Master’s Degree in 1979. He has held visiting professorships at Swarthmore College, the Universität München, and Rutgers (as the Charlotte M. Craig Distinguished Visiting Professor). He was also offered visiting professorships at the Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven, Belgium, the Universität Wien, Austria, and Notre Dame University. A recipient of a Senior Fulbright Fellowship to Germany, a Fulbright German Studies Summer Seminar Fellowship, and several DAAD awards, he has also been honored with the Goethe Institute/AATG Certificate of Merit for outstanding contributions to the profession and been named Outstanding Graduate Student Mentor at Vanderbilt (2004). In 2007 friends and colleagues presented him with a Festschrift. In 1990 his Crossing Boundaries was selected for the DAAD/GSA Biannual Best Book Prize for German German Studies. It is one of eleven books and ninety articles published on both side of the Atlantic.
CV
educational background
B.A.| Oakland University, Rochester MI
Two-year non-degree program | Universität München
M.A., Ph.D. | State University of New York at Buffalo
previous positions
University of Pennsylvania | 1972-1991
Oakland University | 1969-1972
professional honors
· 2007 Festschrift for John A. McCarthy: Practicing Progress—The Promise and Limitations of Enlightenment. Ed. Richard E. Schade and Dieter Sevin. Amsterdam & New York: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2007.
· 2007 Fulbright German Studies Summer Seminar Fellowship
· 2006 Certificate of Merit for outstanding achievements in furthering and encouraging the study of German language and culture in the U.S.A., awarded by the Goethe Institutes in the United States together with the American Association of Teachers of German
· 2004 College of Arts and Science Outstanding Graduate Student Mentor Award
· 2001 Charlotte M. Craig Visiting Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University
· 2000 Venture Fund Award for Innovative Teaching Design
· 1998 Vanderbilt University Research Council Direct Research Grant
· 1998 Nominated for Chairs of Teaching Excellence, Vanderbilt U
· 1997 Elected President of the international Lessing Society (1997-2000)
· 1994-95 Spence and Rebecca Webb Wilson Fellow in the Humanities
· 1993 Senior Fulbright Research Fellowship (German and Comparative Literature, LMU München)
· 1990 DAAD/GSA Biannual Best Book Prize for Crossing Boundaries: A History and Theory of Essay Writing in Germany, 1680-1815 (1989)
· Visiting Professor of German, Swarthmore College
contact information
129 Furman Hall
phone | 615-343-8939 (office)
email | john.a.mccarthy@vanderbilt.edu
Rev. Feb 2011
