Dr. Liliane Weissberg, Professor of German and Comparative Literature, has been reappointed the Joseph B. Glossberg Term Professor in the Humanities, a title she has held since 1998. After completing her M.A. at the Freie Universität Berlin, Dr. Weissberg earned both her A.M. and Ph.D. in comparative literature at Harvard University.

Before coming to Penn in 1989, Dr. Weissberg taught at Harvard University, Hochschule der Künste Berlin, and The Johns Hopkins University. In addition to her faculty position in the department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, she is a member of the Center for Folklore and Ethnography, the Jewish Studies Program, the art history graduate group, and the advisory committee in Women's Studies. Since 1986, Dr. Weissberg has held visiting appointments throughout Germany, including a professorship at Hochschule für Jüdische Studien in Heidelberg this past summer.

Dr. Weissberg's research interests include German, American, and French literature; literary theory; aesthetics; and cultural studies. To address themes of German-Jewish literary and cultural tradition, her recent work focuses on Jewish women writers of the early 19th century. Distinguished scholarship in these fields has earned her fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture as well as recognition from the Netherlands-America Association. In April, Dr. Weissberg received a Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award to honor her commitment to teaching excellence.

In addition to publishing close to 100 articles, she has authored or edited ten books and recently completed a monograph entitled Approaching Gentility: Early German-Jewish Autobiography and the Quest for Acculturation. She currently serves as general editor of the book series Kritik: German Literary Theory and Cultural Studies and is on the editorial boards of the Lessing Yearbook, Poe Studies, and Medienkultur. Dr. Weissberg has shared her expert commentary on BBC WorldServices and CBC in Toronto broadcasts.

This term chair was established in the late 1980s with gifts from Joseph B. Glossberg and Burton X. Rosenberg, both of whom earned undergraduate degrees in economics in 1963 at Penn. Mr. Glossberg is senior managing director of Gofen & Glossberg Inc., a firm of investment counselors in Chicago. He is a former Penn trustee, served as the 25th Reunion Gifts Chair for the Class of 1963, and funded a scholarship for students in the College. Mr. Rosenberg, an attorney in the law firm of Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago, has also given generously to SAS over the years.