Jonah Siegel

Jonah Siegel is a Professor of English at Rutgers University's School of Arts and Sciences, specializing in the intersections of literature, art, and cultural history from the Romantic era through the early twentieth century. He holds a PhD from Columbia University, an MPhil from Oxford University, and a BA from Middlebury College. His research examines how art objects, museums, and aesthetic theories engage with historical trauma, colonial legacies, and material culture, with a focus on violence, loss, and cultural restitution.

Dr. Siegel has authored four major monographs, including Overlooking Damage: Art, Display and Loss in Times of Crisis (2022) and Haunted Museum: Longing, Travel, and the Art-Romance Tradition (2005), and edited The Emergence of the Modern Museum (2007). His work has been supported by prestigious fellowships such as the Rome Prize (2003-2004) and the ACLS Burkhardt Fellowship (2003-2004). He teaches undergraduate courses like Principles of Literary Study and Civilization and its Discontents, as well as graduate seminars on aesthetics, modernist literature, and material culture.

• Key Research Themes: Museum studies, Victorian and modernist aesthetics, art and violence, cultural property, Walter Pater, Henry James
• Awards: Sonya Rudikoff Prize (2000), ACLS Burkhardt Fellowship (2003-2004)
• Recent Publications: 2023 articles in Raritan, Public Books, and PMLA exploring contemporary art crises and historical restitution debates