Peck, Jeffrey M. 1950–

PERSONAL:

Born January 5, 1950, in Pittsburgh, PA. Education: Michigan State University, B.A., 1972; University of Chicago, M.A., 1974; University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D., 1979.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Office of the Dean, Weissman School of Arts and Science, Baruch College of the City University of New York, 1 Bernard Baruch Way, New York, NY 10010. E-mail—Jeffrey_Peck@baruch.cuny.edu.

CAREER:

University of Washington, Seattle, faculty member teaching German, comparative literature, and Jewish studies, 1979-92; Free University, Berlin, Germany, Fulbright professor, 1990-91; Georgetown University, Washington, DC, professor of communication, culture, and technology, and senior fellow in residence, American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, 1992-99, 2002-08; York University and University of Montreal, director of Canadian Centre for German and European Studies, and codirector of Institute of European Studies, 1999-2002; Baruch College of the City University of New York, New York, NY, dean of Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, 2008—. Humboldt University, Berlin, guest teacher, instructor and director of Leo Baeck Summer University in Jewish Studies.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Recipient of grants from numerous sources, including the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD); American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS); International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX); the University of Washington, Seattle, WA; and Georgetown University, Washington, DC. Also recipient of a Volkswagen Senior Postdoctoral fellowship, 1996-97; and a Fulbright grant, 2004.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Hermes Disguised: Literary Hermeneutics and the Interpretation of Literature: Kleist, Grillparzer, Fontane, Lang (Berne, Sweden), 1983.

(Bibliographical editor) New Literary History International Bibliography of Literary Theory and Criticism, edited by Ralph Cohen, Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 1988.

(With John Borneman) Sojourners: The Return of German Jews and the Question of Identity, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 1995.

(Editor, with E. Valentine Daniel) Culture/Contexture: Explorations in Anthropology and Literary Studies, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1996.

(Editor, with Klaus Milich) Multiculturalism in Transit: A German-American Exchange, Berghahn Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Being Jewish in the New Germany, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 2006.

Contributor to books, including A User's Guide to German Cultural Studies, edited by Scott Denham, Irene Kacandes, and Jonathan Petropoulos, University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1997; and The Many Faces of Germany: Transformations in the Study of German Culture and History, Berghahn Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor of articles to journals, including Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, German Studies Review, and German Quarterly.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jeffrey M. Peck is a scholar who explores group identities in his research. He examines issues of national and minority identities in general, and in particular, he focuses on what it means to be Jewish in modern Germany, defined as the period since East and West Germany were reunited as one nation. Peck also focuses on modern responses to the Holocaust, when millions of Jews were exterminated by German authorities during World War II, and he analyzes the complex interplay between Jewish and German culture. His work also explores general issues of culture, religion, politics, ethnicity, and globalization. Peck has taught at universities in the United States, Canada, and Germany.

In Culture/Contexture: Explorations in Anthropology and Literary Studies, Peck and coeditor E. Valentine Daniel put together a collection of essays that "explor[e] the exchanges across the borders of anthropology and literary studies that have been so significant in stimulating and then establishing the enduring legacy of the ‘Writing Culture’ cross-disciplinary assessment of anthropology of the 1980s," stated George E. Marcus in a review for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Marcus added that "while the border between anthropology and literary studies is an uneasy one, this volume better than any other shows the characteristics, quality and productive potential of the exchanges across it since the 1980s."

Peck and coauthor John Borneman conducted fifty interviews and engaged in hundreds of hours of discussion to write Sojourners: The Return of German Jews and the Question of Identity. In eleven life stories and two essays, the authors present a portrait of life as it was experienced by the many German Jews who fled their country during the 1930s only to return after the war was over. Seven of the subjects are from East Berlin, four from West Berlin. The book spans two generations and explores how the eventual reunification of West and East Germany, and West and East Berlin, affected their lives. The subjects represent a rather unique group, as they survived the Holocaust and returned to their country after the Nazi threat was over. While many European Jews left their homelands for the United States or Israel and stayed there, these people returned to Germany.

Peck elaborated on one of his principal themes in Being Jewish in the New Germany, published in 2006. In a review for H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, Anthony D. Kauders described the theme as "simple and to be welcomed," adding that Americans, and American Jews especially, should "understand that Germany has changed and that its Jewish community is made up of more than just a few souls morbidly attached to blood-soaked soil." To achieve this end, Peck gives readers the stories of various Jewish intellectuals, politicians, and artists in Germany. He shows how Jews of Russian and Israeli descent have come to Germany and helped to revitalize Germany's Jewish culture. Russian Jews, particularly, are noted as having become influential in community organizations, especially in and around Berlin. Peck believes that "Jewishness" can be defined differently by various groups of people, and new ideas of what it means to be Jewish should be embraced. In a larger sense, Peck attempts to show the changing nature of the meanings assigned to Israel and the Diaspora and broaden the definition of Jewishness. Kauders also mentioned that Being Jewish in the New Germany is a "rare example of a book in Jewish Studies in which postmodernism is taken to its logical conclusion. Peck not only proffers the idea of the decentered subject whose ‘identity’ always retreats beyond its grasp, he … concludes that today's decentered subjects construct decentered Judaisms from various decentered bits and pieces, memories and projections, traditions and impositions. In terms of postmodern logic, this stance is absolutely convincing."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Anthropologist, December 1, 1996, Jonathan Boyarin, review of Sojourners: The Return of German Jews and the Question of Identity, p. 869.

Booklist, November 15, 1995, George Cohen, review of Sojourners, p. 533.

Central European History, March 22, 1997, Wilma A. Iggers, review of Sojourners, p. 343.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, September 1, 2006, G.R. Sharfman, review of Being Jewish in the New Germany, p. 188.

Comparative Literature Studies, June 22, 1998, Susan Terrio, review of Culture/Contexture: Exploration in Anthropology and Literary Studies, p. 304.

European History Quarterly, October 1, 1997, Martyn Housden, review of Sojourners, p. 610.

German Quarterly, September 22, 1996, Dagmar C.G. Lorenz, review of Sojourners, p. 431.

German Studies Review, May 1, 2000, Nina Berman, review of Multiculturalism in Transit: A German-American Exchange, p. 404.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, December 1, 1998, George E. Marcus, review of Culture/Contexture, p. 809.

New Community, October 1, 1997, Madeleine Tress, review of Sojourners, p. 574.

Reference & Research Book News, May 1, 2006, review of Being Jewish in the New Germany.

ONLINE

American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS) Web site,http://www.aicgs.org/ (June 18, 2008), biographical information about Jeffrey M. Peck.

Baruch College at the City University of New York (CUNY) Web site,http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/ (April 4, 2008), biographical information about Peck.

Georgetown University Web site,http://explore.georgetown.edu/ (June 18, 2008), biographical information about Peck.

Goethe-Institut Web site,http://www.goethe.de/ (June 18, 2008), biographical information about Peck.

H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online,http://www.h-net.org/ (July 1, 2006), Anthony D. Kauders, "Bagels into Jews," review of Being Jewish in the New Germany.