If Brown was looking for a world-class scholar to head its new Cogut Humanities Center, the University appears to have found the right person for the job.
"Michael Steinberg will bring dynamism and excitement to the new Humanities Center," wrote Professor of History and current Humanities Center Director Carolyn Dean in an e-mail to The Herald. "He is a reputed scholar in both music and history, and the ideal person to lead a Center devoted to promoting interdisciplinarity and cross-cultural exchange."
Currently a professor of modern European history at Cornell University, Steinberg won the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and the Berlin Prize Fellowship of the American Academy in Berlin, and in 2003-2004, he was also the Anna Maria Kellen Fellow at the Academy. A well-regarded author, he won the Austrian national history prize in 2001 for his book "Austria as Theater and Ideology: The Meaning of the Salzburg Festival." A music scholar as well, he is currently the associate editor of the Musical Quarterly.
Steinberg's resume impressed the Corporation, which named Steinberg the first director of the Cogut Humanities Center on Saturday. The center was renamed after a lead donation from Deborah Cogut and Craig Cogut '75.
As the appointed director of the center, Steinberg said his goal is to promote collaboration between the humanities departments at Brown.
"We're going to start by giving the Brown faculty the most opportunities that we can to use the center to promote their research and to make the center a place for collaboration and for dialogue for the humanities," Steinberg said. "The humanities really do depend on conversation."
Steinberg said all humanities departments would be involved with the center, although he also invites faculty from other departments and institutions to participate.
"We're also to hoping to start conversation with other institutions like the Watson Institute and Pembroke Center," Steinberg said.
The center would also host seminars and social events, Steinberg said.
This will be Steinberg's first teaching stint at Brown. Along with his duties as director of the new center, Steinberg will also be a professor of history and music, although he does not yet know what he will teach this fall.
Steinberg said the strength of the humanities departments at Brown, as well as the Plan for Academic Enrichment, made it an easy choice for him to accept the job.
"I (thought the job) was totally irresistible," Steinberg said. "I was thrilled when they asked me to do it. I think it's been the most exciting job in the country for a couple of years, and I think Brown is a wonderful place."
