Jeff Aziz

Jeff's Affiliations:  Vibrant Media Lab, Provost Academy, Phi Beta Kappa, Jewish Studies, Carnegie Museums, Steel City Stage Combat, Provost Academy Courses, University Honors College, Health Humanities Certificate and Medical Humanities

Jeffrey Aziz received his Masters and his PhD at the University of Pittsburgh. Jeff prefers to see culture in the round, exploring the manner in which literary, religious, artistic, dramatic, and scientific representation are richly connected and interdependent.  An undergraduate at heart, he is interested in many disciplinary areas. He teaches courses on Shakespeare, early modern literature, drama, museum studies, religious studies, and the cultural history of science, medicine, and anatomy, often in curious combinations. He is interested in the history of radical liberatory movements from the late medieval to modernity, from the Anabaptists to the modern political Left. His interest in the artistic/literary representation of the human body extends from religious allegory and iconography, to the body in drama, to medical/anatomical bodies.  He designed and introduced the literature program’s  Apocalypse, Literature and Science, and Unruly Bodies courses.  His teaching has involved several early-modern material practices including letterpress printing and stage combat.  He is fascinated by the history of the graphic display of information from Galileo to Fritz Kahn to the work of his own students.  He has studied broadsword and rapier-and-dagger fencing for the stage, and hopes to earn his actor-combatant certification before too long. 

Jeff is an assistant dean in the Dietrich School, and is academic integrity officer for the undergraduate division.  He is president of the Xi chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.  He is a long-serving advisor in the English Department.  He is a 2020 Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award Recipient.