Joined CMLL in: 2006

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Intersections of Literature, Philosophy, and Natural Science in late 18th-century German Lands

TEACHING INTERESTS

• European intellectual history and literary, political and social theory
• Early 20th Century German Aesthetics and Politics
• German literature and culture from the Middle Ages to the present
• Aesthetics from the Ancients to the Moderns
• Language acquisition and (critical) pedagogy

I teach German language, literature, cultural studies, comparative literature, philosophy, intellectual history, the history of science, and some social and political theory. All of my courses are taught in German. I challenge my students to discover new ideas, alternative perspectives on the human experience, to think critically and to write effectively.

OTHER INTERESTS

• Hiking
• Bird Watching
• Kayaking

PERSONAL WEBSITES

• https://msstate.academia.edu/SallyGray

• Ph.D. in German Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2004
• M.A. (1997)
• B.A. in Philosophy, Magna Cum Laude, Kenyon College, 1986

COURSES TAUGHT

• German I, II, III, & IV. 
• FLG 3114 Advanced German Composition
• FLG 3124 Advanced German Conversation. 
• FLG 3143 German Civilization.
• FLG 4493 Mysteries in German Literature and Film
• FLG 4353 German Novella

COURSES DEVELOPED AND TAUGHT:

• FLG 4533/6533 “Art, Politics, and Propaganda.” A survey of the relationship between philosophies of art and art itself and politics from Plato to several enlightenment-aged thinkers, to Walter Benjamin, and then a look at Nazi propaganda from this context.
• FLG 4143/6143 “Verwandlungen” (“Metamorphoses”). A survey of the theme of transformation in German literature centering on novels by Herman Hess and Franz Kafka and other shorter texts.
• FLG 4523/6523 “Survey of German Literature from 1750 to the Present.” A survey which covers this time period first with fables and fairy tales, then with prose, then with scientific writing, and finally with poetry.
• FLG 4123/6123 “German Fairy Tales.” A study of Grimms’ Hausmärchen, a collection of folk and fairy tales.
• FLG 4990/6990 “German Romantic Fairy Tales.” A study German Kunstmärchen and Romanticism of the early 19th century.
• FLG 6990 “Origins of modern Mysteries: Schiller’s Forgotten Crime Stories.” Readings in Schiller’s literary prose texts.
• FLG 8543 “Race Theory in Classical German Thought.” A cross-disciplinary study of "Scientific" Race Theory, which was born during the German Enlightenment, focused on works by Immanuel Kant and contemporary critiques of it.
• FLG 8990 “Scoundrels in German Literature.” A study of the figure of the scoundrel in canonical German literature.

COURSES DEVELOPED:

• FL 4990 “Introduction to German Studies.” A course taught in English. Focusing on the Weimar period using the film, Babylon Berlin and an historical account of the rise of the Nazis.

• Mississippi Modern Foreign Language Association Service Award, Awarded for outstanding service to the M-FLA on November 2012 for the 2011-2012 academic year
• HARP Grant Recipient, Humanities and Arts Research Program, Mississippi State University, July 2008 to June 2009
• Dissertation Completion Fellowship, an endowed non-service award given in recognition of outstanding quality and progress in work on a dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School, 2002-2003.

• “Disinterested Pleasure and Aesthetic Autonomy in Georg Forster’s Voyage ‘round the World” published in the journal Open Inquire Archive 1 : 5 (2012).
• “Aesthetics, Anthropology, and the Limits of Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism in Georg Forster’s Reise um die Welt” published in the journal New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century 9 : 1 (Spring, 2012).
• “Kant’s Race Theory, Forster’s Counter, and the Metaphysics of Color” published in the journal, The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 53:4 (Winter, 2012).
• “On Specialization and the Dead Eye: Kant’s Race Theory and the Problem of Perception Illustrated in Kleist’s Betrothal in Santo Domingo” in Race Theory in Literature, by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019. (89-108).

Current Project funded by a College of Arts and Sciences Strategic Research Initiative Grant:

A Book Entitled: Against Specialization: The Argument for Art in Science found in Critiques of Kant’s Aesthetics, Anthropology, and Scientific Theory by Schiller, Goethe, and Kleist