Bio
My educational and research pursuits have always been closely tied to my personal experiences. Having grown up surrounded by the distinctive mix of cultures peculiar to New Mexico along with a lively appreciation for my family heritage from Denmark and German-speaking Europe, which included emigration to America to join a minority religious tradition, I have long had the sensation of living “in between” cultural, social, and linguistic traditions. At times, that has been painful, as I have everywhere felt somewhat like an outsider looking in. But perhaps for that very reason, I have also always felt compelled to explore other cultures more deeply—and thereby also my own “in betweenness”—both through my academic studies in Comparative Literature and Germanic Studies and also through living in Brazil, England, Austria, and Germany, along with various parts of the United States. In addition to learning languages and experiencing firsthand various cultural instantiations of the human experience, other personal hobbies include trail running, camping, playing the violin, creative writing, stargazing and woodworking (these last two with considerably more enthusiasm than skill), and spending time with my wife and children.
Education
Ph.D., Germanic Studies & Comparative Literature (joint degree), Indiana University Bloomington, Ind. (2011)
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen (Germany), dissertation research (2009-2010)
Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), graduate course work (2004-2005)
M.St. (Master of Studies) with distinction, German, University of Oxford (2003)
B.A. with University Honors, Comparative Literature, Brigham Young University (2001)
Austro-American Institute of Education, Vienna, undergraduate course work (1999)
Professional Experience
Professor of German, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colo. (July 2025 – present)
Associate Professor of German, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colo. (July 2015 – June 2025)
Assistant Professor of German, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colo. (August 2011 – June 2015)
Instructor of German, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colo. (July 2010 – July 2011)
Honors & Awards
Kierkegaard Summer Institute Research Fellow, Hong Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN (Summer 2024)
Humboldt Research Fellowship, Alexander von Humboldt Research Foundation, Berlin (host: Professor Joseph Vogl, HU-Berlin) (2017-2018)
Outstanding Academy Educator, U.S. Air Force Academy (2014)
Fulbright Fellowship, Baden-Württemberg Seminar for American Faculty of German and German Studies, Tübingen (2011)
Fulbright Research Fellowship, Tübingen (host: Professor Bernhard Greiner, Tübingen) (2009-2010)
Visiting Scholar, Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College (2008)
Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship, Scandinavian Studies, U.S. Department of Education (2007-2008)
Academic Exchange Fellowship, Freie Universität Berlin (2004-2005)
Research and Scholarly Interests
German literature and thought
Comparative Literature (German, English, French, Scandinavian and Portuguese language traditions)
Interrelations of literature and philosophy; aesthetic theory; theories of modernity
Charisma
Kierkegaard
Max Weber
Publications
“Kierkegaard, Spirit, and the Definition of the Human in the Lily and Bird Discourses,” International Journal of Kierkegaard Research 2 (2025), pp. 47-71.
“Kierkegaard’s Sociality of Silence,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 30 (2025), pp. 177-200.
“Grace in a Time of War: Herder’s ‘Das Fest der Grazien’ between Schiller and Hölderlin,” Oxford German Studies 52:4 (2023), pp. 436-453.
“‘Real Humor Cannot Be Captured in a Novel’: Kierkegaard Reading E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr” in E.T.A. Hoffmann: Transgressive Romanticism, ed. Christopher Clason (Liverpool University Press, 2018), pp. 208-224.
“Bonhoeffer’s Poetry and the Aesthetics of Resistance” Journal of the Association for the Interdisciplinary Study of the Arts 12 (Spring 2017), pp. 73-98.
LeAnn Derby, Jean W. LeLoup, James Rasmussen, Ismênia Sales de Souza, “Developing Intercultural Competence and Leadership through LSP Curricula” in Mary K. Long, ed., Language for Specific Purposes Studies: Trends in Curriculum Development (Georgetown University Press, 2017), pp. 73-86.
“Integrating Leadership and Foreign Language Literary Studies.” Co-authored with Sheri Spaine Long, in Dimension 2017 (Decatur, GA: Southern Conference on Language Teaching, 2017), pp. 49-71.
“Mendelssohn’s Stutter and the Collisions of Modern Thought” German Studies Review 39.2 (2016), pp. 223-240.
“Music in the Streets: E.T.A. Hoffmann, Kierkegaard, and What One Hears Outside the Opera House,” Das E.T.A. Hoffmann-Jahrbuch 20 (2012), pp. 29-36.
“Language and the Most Sublime in Kant’s Third Critique,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 68.2 (Spring 2010), pp. 155-166.
“Sound and Motion in Goethe’s Magic Flute,” Monatshefte 101.1 (March 2009), pp. 19-36.
“Reading the Prophets Prophetically in Coleridge’s Confessions,” European Romantic Review 19.4 (October 2008), pp. 403-420.