The Department of German, Russian, and East European Languages and Literatures is pleased to present the Fall 2026 Rodig Lecture, which will be given by renowned scholar Kevin McLaughlin. His talk is entitled "A New Beauty in What is Disappearing: Walter Benjamin on the Novel."
This program is funded by a generous endowment from Mrs. Lillian Rodig Maxwell, in memory of her brother, Dr. Oscar R. Rodig, Jr. RC ‘51, who studied Chemistry and German at Rutgers College, and in memory of her sister Erika Rodig Rosera, DC ‘62, who studied History and German at Douglass College.
Kevin McLaughlin is the George Hazard Crooker Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and German Studies; Director, John Nicholas Brown Center for Advanced Study; and Dean Emeritus of the Faculty at Brown University. Most recently, he is the author of The Philology of Life: Walter Benjamin's Critical Program (Fordham UP, 2023), and the co-editor and co-translator, with Susan Bernstein and Peter Fenves, of Walter Benjamin: On Goethe (Stanford UP, 2025).