Dr. Schmidt is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Professor of German. He has taught classes in Women's and Gender Studies, LGBTQ+ Studies, Film Studies, Liberal Arts, and German language, literature, and culture. He has also team-taught classes with professors of Philosophy, History, Religious Studies, Spanish, Women's and Gender Studies, Political Science, Sociology, and English. He is the co-editor of Quertext: An Anthology of Queer Voices from German-Speaking Europe (University of Wisconsin Press, 2021). HIs articles have appeared in The German Quarterly, Gegenwartsliteratur, Modern Austrian Literature, Colloquia Germanica, ADFL Bulletin, and numerous anthologies. 

Areas of Expertise:

• Contemporary German Literature and Film
• Queer Theory
• Thomas Mann
• Literature of Vergangenheitsbewältigung
• Literary Translation

Courses Taught

• The Holocaust
• Gender and Sexuality in German and Austrian Culture
• Interdisciplinarity and Diversity
• Philosophical Themes in Literature
• Theory and Practice of Translation
• The German Play
• Germany 1945 to the Present
• Critical Theory
• Introduction to Film Studies
• Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced German Language

Education History

• B.A.  Knox College
• M.S.Ed. Northern Illinois University
• M.A.  University of California, Santa Barbara
• Ph.D. Washington University in St. Louis