Jeff Aziz is a Senior Lecturer and Advisor in the English department. Jeff refers 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 and Literature and Science courses.
Jeff has worked to promote the place of the humanities in the university and to encourage collaboration across the disciplines. He was a founding member of the Humanities at Pitt and served on the Dietrich School Humanities Council. He currently serves in the Working Group on the Medical Humanities. He is an affiliated member of the Medical Humanities and Jewish Studies faculties, and is a Faculty Fellow of the University Honors College.