Richard Utz
Interim Dean, Professor
- Ivan Allen Dean's Office
- School of Literature, Media, and Communication
Overview
Richard Utz is an academic leader who has served as senior associate dean in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts (IAC) and as chair of the School of Literature, Media, and Communication (LMC). Under Utz’s leadership, LMC experienced consequential growth in external research funding, faculty productivity, and enrollment and diversity in its undergraduate and graduate programs, and it added to its curriculum minors in Black Media Studies, Science Fiction, and Social Justice (with the School of History and Sociology), and a profession ready master’s degree in Global Media and Cultures (with the School of Modern Languages and the Library). Utz also oversaw the renovation and repurposing of multiple spaces to further student success and belonging such as the Undergraduate Hub, the Sci-Fi Lab, the Career Origination Lab, and the Digital Integrative Liberal Arts Center, funded by the Mellon Foundation. During his tenure, LMC saw the appointment of its first Regents’ Professor, and he incentivized research that reaches out to educated general publics, significantly amplifying his school’s reputation. He led these efforts by example, publishing two editions of the unit’s calling card essay collection, Humanistic Perspectives in a Technological World, and sharing his views in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Times Higher Education, and Issues in Science and Technology.
As a leader at the College level, Utz has overseen faculty affairs processes and professional development, including a comprehensive resource hub and workshop series on reappointment, promotion, and tenure and a faculty-to-faculty mentoring process. He served as co-champion for building and implementing the Ivan Allen College Strategic Plan, organized high impact events on integrating the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences with STEM fields, and played a role in strategic communication and development activities, garnering funds for LGBTQ+ projects and international summer internships. He also represented the college to internal and external constituencies, serving on the Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council, the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage Selection Committee, and the Arts@Tech Strategic Planning Steering Committee.
Before joining Georgia Tech in 2012, Utz held administrative and faculty appointments at Western Michigan University, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, University of Northern Iowa, and Technische Universität Dresden. He received his Ph.D. in English and German Literary Studies and Linguistics from the University of Regensburg, Germany, and his scholarship centers on medievalism, medieval culture and literature, the interconnections between humanistic inquiry and science/technology, reception study, and the formation of cultural memories and identities. An impactful scholar, he was a plenary speaker at the world’s largest international congress in Medieval Studies, served for eleven years as President of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism, and helps shape his field of study on the editorial advisory board of journals and book series based in Australia, Great Britain, Denmark, Germany, and the United States. Utz has shared his research in three monographs, 21 (co)edited essay collections and special journal issues, 80 journal articles and book chapters, and 70 book reviews. His work has been translated into French, Portuguese, Russian, and Turkish, and he has received media attention by the Christian Science Monitor, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Forbes, New York Times, Sputnik Mundo, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Time Magazine, and Serious Eats (seriously!). Utz’s has been recognized with a German Academic Exchange Service Teaching Fellowship, the Johann von Spix International Visiting Professorship at Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, the Iowa State Board of Regents Award for Faculty Excellence, and as Director’s Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Research Library.
- Dr. phil. Universität Regensburg, Germany
Distinctions:
- President, International Society for the Study of Medievalism (2009-2020)
- Director’s Visiting Scholar (Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, Harvard U, 2018)
- Johann von Spix International Visiting Professor (U of Bamberg, 2017)
- Dr. Phillip Hubbard Award for Outstanding Educator (U of Northern Iowa, 2006)
- Faculty Excellence Award (College of Humanities & Fine Arts, U of Northern Iowa, 2004)
- University Distinguished Scholar Award (U of Northern Iowa, 2003)
- Regents Award for Faculty Excellence (Iowa State Board of Regents, 2002)
- Donald N. McKay Faculty Research Award (U of Northern Iowa, 2001)
- Outstanding Teaching Award (College of Humanities & Fine Arts, U of Northern Iowa, 1995)
- English Department Professor of the Year (Sigma Tau Delta, U of Northern Iowa, 1993)
- Dr. Katharina Sailer Award for Outstanding Work in the Field of English Studies” (Dissertation Prize, U of Regensburg, 1991)
Interests
- Communication
- Digital Media
- Education Policy
- German
- Literary and Cultural Studies
- Media Studies
- Science and Technology Studies
Focuses:
- Europe
- Europe - United Kingdom
- North America
- United States
- Race/Ethnicity
- Digital Humanities
- Education
- Higher Education: Teaching and Learning
- History and Memory
- Literary Theory
- Literature
- Media
Courses
- LCC-3502: Medieval Lit & Culture
- LCC-3823: Special Topics Lit/Cult
- LCC-4100: Seminar in STAC
- LMC-2000: Intro-Lit, Media, & Comm
- LMC-2050: Lit, Media, Comm Seminar
- LMC-3226: Major Authors
- LMC-3502: Medieval Lit & Culture
- LMC-4000: Senior Seminar in LMC
- LMC-4200: Seminar Lit/Cult Theory
Publications
Selected Publications
Books
- Medievalism: A Manifesto
Date: January 2017
Journal Articles
- Medievalism, Anti-Semitism, and 21st-Century Media
In: Studies in Medievalism 28 (2019): 41-51 [Peer Reviewed]
Date: January 2019
- Medievalism and the Subject of Religion
In: Studies in Medievalism 24 [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2015
Assesses the reasons for the relative disregard of scholarly work on studying the continuity of religious thought and faith by scholarship in Medievalism Studies over the last 25 years. Postulates that medievalism scholars have an ethical obligation to investigate and historicize religion and theology, at least in its temporal manifestations.
Chapters
- Academic Medievalism and Nationalism
In: The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism
Date: 2016
Medievalism - the creative interpretation or recreation of the European Middle Ages - has had a major presence in the cultural memory of the modern West, and has grown in scale to become a global phenomenon. This essay surveys the nationalist tradition in the reception of medieval culture among amateurs, dilettantes, enthusiasts, and antiquaries to full-time academic scholars.
Internet Publications
- For US tenure to survive, academics must take peer reviewing seriously
In: Times Higher Education
Date: April 2022
- Against Adminspeak
In: Chronicle of Higher Education
Date: May 2020
- Whose (Medieval) Congress Is It Anyway?
In: Inside Higher Ed
Date: August 2018
- Game of Thrones Among the Medievalists
In: Inside Higher Ed
Date: July 2017
- The Diversity Question and the Administrative-Job Interview
In: Chronicle of Higher Education
Date: January 2017
All Publications
Books
- Humanistic Perspectives in a Technological World
In: Ed. Richard Utz and Karen Head
Date: 2021
- Medievalism: A Manifesto
Date: January 2017
Journal Articles
- Medievalism, Anti-Semitism, and 21st-Century Media
In: Studies in Medievalism 28 (2019): 41-51 [Peer Reviewed]
Date: January 2019
- Medievalism and the Subject of Religion
In: Studies in Medievalism 24 [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2015
Assesses the reasons for the relative disregard of scholarly work on studying the continuity of religious thought and faith by scholarship in Medievalism Studies over the last 25 years. Postulates that medievalism scholars have an ethical obligation to investigate and historicize religion and theology, at least in its temporal manifestations.
- Quo Vadis, English Studies
Date: 2014
The Modern Language Association's Division on the History and Theory of Rhetoric and Composition had invited me to contribute a paper on the topic of "Rhetoric as a New Paradigm for English Studies" for the 2014 annual meeting of the MLA in Chicago. While the other participants at the session, Douglas Hesse (University of Denver), Peter Leslie Mortensen (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and Michael Bernard-Donals (University of Wisconsin, Madison), focused on illustrative examples of the cultural work rhetoric can do within the "English" paradigm, my own proposition as the only "English literature" person now at a major technological research institution turned out somewhat more radical. My thought experiment asked whether we need "English" departments at all, extending previous deliberations published in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Utz 2013)
- The Good Corporation? Google's Medievalism and Why it Matters
In: Studies in Medievalism 23 [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2013
Examines the role of the corporation in its attempt at using the positive aspects of a return to the Middle Ages, and examines the support its technologies (specifially the N-gram Viewer) has afforded historical and cultural semantics.
Chapters
- Academic Medievalism and Nationalism
In: The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism
Date: 2016
Medievalism - the creative interpretation or recreation of the European Middle Ages - has had a major presence in the cultural memory of the modern West, and has grown in scale to become a global phenomenon. This essay surveys the nationalist tradition in the reception of medieval culture among amateurs, dilettantes, enthusiasts, and antiquaries to full-time academic scholars.
- Robin Hood, Frenched
In: Medieval Afterlives in Popular Culture
Date: 2012
Between 1963 and 1966, French Television broadcast a medievalist series entitled Thierry La Fronde, or Thierry the Sling. This successful series, which was also shown in Canada, Poland, Australia, and the Netherlands, transposes the English Robin Hood narrative into late medieval France in fascinating ways. Drawing from the postmedieval English tradition surrounding Robin Hood, in which the protagonist appears as a member of the nobility who has fallen from grace, Thierry de Janville, a young Sologne nobleman, who had fought against the English occupation by the French during the Hundred Years War, loses his title and lands because of his disloyal steward. Taking up the name "Thierry La Fronde" and surrounding himself with a host or merry men (and Isabelle, his "Maid Marian"), he wields his knightly sword as well as the popular sling in his résistance against the oppressive Black Prince and his allies. My analysis of the series addressed the feuilleton's indebtedness to numerous elements of the Robin Hood narrative, characters, and episodes, specifically those in The Adventures of Robin Hood and Ivanhoe, two TV shows targeting Anglo-American audiences in the 1950s.
Internet Publications
- For US tenure to survive, academics must take peer reviewing seriously
In: Times Higher Education
Date: April 2022
- Integrating STEM and the Humanities
In: Inside Higher Ed
Date: March 2022
- Against Adminspeak
In: Chronicle of Higher Education
Date: May 2020
- Whose (Medieval) Congress Is It Anyway?
In: Inside Higher Ed
Date: August 2018
- Game of Thrones Among the Medievalists
In: Inside Higher Ed
Date: July 2017
- The Diversity Question and the Administrative-Job Interview
In: Chronicle of Higher Education
Date: January 2017
- Don't Be Snobs, Medievalists
In: Chronicle of Higher Education
Date: August 2015