John Orlock (Interim Director)

John Orlock's works have been produced at such major regional theaters as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; The Cleveland Play House; Alley Theatre, Houston; Cricket Theatre, Minneapolis; Arizona Repertory Theatre; the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival; as well as internationally at the Focus Theatre, Dublin, and the Hungarian National Theatre.

He's a recipient of writing fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as fellowships from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Blue Mountain Colony, and the Sewanee Writers Conference.

His screenplay, The End-of-Summer Guest - about Anne & Charles Lindbergh and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - was awarded the third place prize in the 2009 American Screenwriters Association International Screenplay Competition.

Earlier this year his play New Orleans won first place in 16th Annual Premiere One-Act Competition sponsored by the Moving Arts Theater Company in Los Angeles.

After joining the CWRU faculty in 1989, Professor Orlock served ten years as the head of the Department of Theater & Dance, during which time he was instrumental in establishing the highly regarded MFA graduate program collaboration with the Cleveland Play House.

Professor Orlock holds the Samuel B. and Virginia C. Knight Chair in Humanities, and is a member of the Department of English. A past recipient of the Wittke Award for distinguished undergraduate teaching, he currently conducts a popular SAGES seminar, Fly-Fishing: the Sport, the Metaphysics, & the Literature.

Mary Davis (Associate Director)

Mary Davis specializes in the cultural criticism of music, and her research focuses on the relationship of music to fashion. Her book Classic Chic: Music, Fashion, and Modernism, published in 2006 by the University of California Press, was short-listed for the Costume Society of America's Millia Davenport Publication Award. She is also the author of the biography Erik Satie, published in the Critical Lives series at London-based Reaktion Books, and is editor of the forthcoming volume Waiting for a Train: Jimmie Rodgers's America, which will be issued by Rounder Books in 2008.

Susanne Vees-Gulani (Associate Director)

Susanne Vees-Gulani is Associate Professor of German and Comparative Literature in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Case Western Reserve University. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and joined CWRU in 2006. Dr. Vees-Gulani also serves as Co-Director for the Max Kade Center for German Studies. Her research focuses on 20th and 21st Century German literature and culture, the Second World War, postwar reconstruction and identity formation, trauma and memory studies, and science and literature. She is the author of Trauma and Guilt: Literature of Wartime Bombing in Germany (2003) and co-editor of Generational Shifts in Contemporary German Culture (2010). Recent publications also include articles on Dieter Forte, W. G. Sebald, and Durs Grünbein, the rebuilding efforts in the city of Dresden, as well as the pictorial history of Dresden. For 2010-2011, Dr. Vees-Gulani was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship to work on her current book project about the origins and manifestations of the German victim discourse surrounding Dresden.

Maggie Kaminski (Administrative Director)

Maggie Kaminski is an alumna, having received her master of non-profit organizations degree at CWRU in 1995. She has worked in various capacities at CWRU, including over ten years of service in the School of Medicine's development office where she was director of alumni affairs and friends programs, director of leadership programs, and a consultant in matters related to the capital campaign for the Cleveland Health Sciences Library as well as the Amici Medicinae (Friends of Medicine) program. She has been with the Baker-Nord Center since March 2007.

William Deal (Digital Humanities Faculty Liaison)

William E. Deal is Severance Professor of the History of Religion in the Department of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University and holds a secondary appointment as Professor of Cognitive Science in the Department of Cognitive Science. He serves as the Digital Humanities Faculty Liaison for the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is past Chair of the Department of Religious Studies and served for several years as Director of CWRU's Asian Studies Program. He was the founding director of the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence. Dr. Deal received an A.B. in Religion (magna cum laude) and an A.M. in Asian Studies from Washington University in St. Louis. He received his Ph.D. in Religion from Harvard University in 1988. At CWRU, Dr. Deal teaches courses that focus on theory and interpretation in the academic study of religion, religion and cognitive science, comparative religious ethics, and East Asian religious and ethical traditions. His scholarship includes numerous articles, chapters, and book reviews on methodology in the academic study of religion, religion and ethics, and Japanese Buddhism. He is co-author of the book Theory for Religious Studies (Routledge) and author of Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan (Oxford University Press).

Lee Zickel (Digital Humanities Manager)

Lee Zickel is a Case alumnus, graduating with a degree in Biology. Subsequently, Lee earned a degree and a Masters in Literature from Cleveland State University and a Masters in Library and Information Science from Kent State. Prior to joining the Baker-Nord Center, Lee worked on several projects for Digital Case at Kelvin Smith Library.

 

Past Directors

Anne Helmreich

Senior Programming Officer, The Getty Foundation
Director, 2007-2010
Associate Director, 2004-2007.

Timothy Beal

Florence Harkness Professor of Religion, CWRU
Director, 2004-2007
Associate Director, 2002-2004.
» visit faculty page...

Tom Bishop

The University of Auckland
Founding Director, 1996-2004.

Marie Lathers

Elizabeth M. and William C. Treuhaft Professor of Humanities and French, CWRU
Associate Director.
» visit faculty page...

Catherine Scallen

Associate Pofessor of Art History, CWRU
Associate Director.
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Angela Wollacott

The Macquarie University, Sydney
Associate Director.