Ferdinand von Muench

I have always loved languages, literature, and culture, and the relationship between them.

My degree is in Comparative Literature and History. I have worked on the influence of ancient literature in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew on modern literature in German, English, French, and Italian; on linguistic experiments in avant-garde poetry; and on the theory and history of literary genres (especially elegy).

Teaching in the Core curriculum at Colgate has allowed me to expand my interests to Asian, African, and Native American texts (although I can read most of them only in translation) and to collaborate with faculty colleagues in the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.

I am fond of the ancient ideal of liberal education—liberal education as the learning that free people pursue their free time, for its own sake and their own sake—, and I try to sneak some of these anachronistic, joyful ideas and practices into the highly regimented world of contemporary higher education. 

Reading ancient and modern “classical texts” from around the world has led me to believe that contemplative, creative, and compassionate modes of inquiry can be important and fruitful complements to the critical mode of inquiry of academic research that is traditionally dominant in higher education; I am trying to cultivate them all in my learning, teaching, and service at Colgate University.

In my view, genuine learning draws on the capabilities of the body, the mind, and the physical and social environment, and it should serve the development of all three. It is unwise to maximize the performance of any of them at the expense of the others (as is often done), because ultimately they all are one. For me, the purpose of a liberal arts college is not to serve as an arena for four years of cerebral exercise and pre-professional credential-building, nor to balance a bunch of classes with a bunch of parties under the motto “work hard, play hard,” but rather the integrative cultivation of well-being for the self and the world (which are also ultimately one).