Biography

David D. Kim is Professor in the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies and Associate Vice Provost at the International Institute.

Professor Kim’s scholarly interests range from postcolonial, global and migration studies and community engagement to human rights, cosmopolitanism, solidarity and global literary histories. He is the author of Arendt’s Solidarity: Anti-Semitism and Racism in the Atlantic World (Stanford University Press, 2024), which tracks various manifestations of this concept in the political theorist’s archival documents, publications, and recordings. His other monograph is Cosmopolitan Parables (Northwestern University Press, 2017). It investigates how German writers represent memories of colonialism, Nazism, and communism in the post-Cold War world as cross-referential, cosmopolitan entanglements. His edited books include Globalgeschichten der deutschen Literatur (Metzler Verlag, 2022; co-edited with Urs Büttner), Reframing Postcolonial Studies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), The Postcolonial World (Routledge, 2016; co-edited with Jyotsna Singh), Imagining Human Rights (De Gruyter, 2015; co-edited with Susanne Kaul), and Georg Simmel in Translation (Cambridge Scholars, 2009). His peer-reviewed articles have appeared in The German Quarterly, Monatshefte, Gegenwartsliteratur, Journal of Translation Studies, and Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft. For a complete list of his publications, please see his curriculum vitae.

Education

• Ph.D., Harvard University 
• M.A., Harvard University 
• A.B./B.S., Duke University 

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Community Engagement and Travel Study

Professor Kim serves as the Inaugural Community Engagement Advisor for the Division of Humanities. With support from the Center for Community Engagement, he teaches an undergraduate/graduate course in which students engage with transatlantic community partners such as the Thomas Mann House, Villa Aurora and Literaturhaus Wien. Professor Kim also leads the Global Studies Summer Program in The Hague, focusing on the history and philosophy of human rights, the International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice.