BACKGROUND

B.A. German, The Citadel
M.A. German Literature, UNC Chapel Hill
Ph.D. German Literature, UNC Chapel Hill

AREAS OF INTEREST

Language and the Nation
Literary and Cultural Theory
German for Business
Gender Studies
Orality and Literacy

Prof. Smith's background in German includes studies at four institutions of higher learning (two German and two American); a Fulbright grant to study the Lutheran Church's support of East German dissidents during the 1980s; customer service experience in a Black Forest hotel; and shift-work in an aluminum factory in the Rhine-Ruhr industrial region. Originally from South Carolina, Prof. Smith joined ECU's faculty in August 2005. Though he remains fascinated by contemporary and twentieth-century German literature, Prof. Smith specializes in Early Modern and Enlightenment culture and thought. In his dissertation, for example, he analyzes writings on the German language from the founding of the most prominent language societies in the early 1600s through J. G. Herder (1744-1803) to determine if and how the language is perceived to transmit or even construct German identity. Currently at work on an article on J. C. Gottsched and the printing press, Prof. Smith will focus his future research on orality, literacy and the gendering of language in the eighteenth century.

PUBLICATIONS

„Zeit- und Gesellschaftskritik in Wilhelm Hauffs ‚Das kalte Herz’.” in Wilhelm Hauff. Aufsätze zu seinem poetischen Werk. Mit einer Bibliographie der Forschungsliteratur. Ed. Ulrich Kittstein. St. Ingbert: Röhrig-Universitätsverlag, 2002. 63-82.