Leonard Von Morze

Leonard Von Morze serves as Associate Professor and Interim Dean of the Honors College at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where his scholarship centers on early American literature's transatlantic dimensions and multilingual republicanism. His work bridges historical analysis with contemporary implications for English language learners and environmental discourse in the public sphere.

His academic credentials include a B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.A. from the University of California, Irvine. These foundations support his interdisciplinary approach spanning literary studies, history, and environmental humanities.

Von Morze's research examines how non-Anglophone perspectives shaped early American republicanism, particularly through German-language writings and transatlantic networks. His current book project German Fractures analyzes secularization and liberalism's public/private divisions in the multilingual early republic. He extends this historical inquiry to modern contexts through environmental humanities, exploring Boston's ecological history and harbor development.

His publication trajectory reveals consistent engagement with Atlantic World literary circulation, focusing on figures like Charles Brockden Brown and Christian Jacob Hütter while examining themes of cosmopolitanism, cultural transfer, and labor systems. Recent work increasingly intersects with digital humanities through analyses of AI and plagiarism in early African American literature.

His scholarly recognition includes:

• Barra Sabbatical Fellowship at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies

As Interim Dean, Von Morze champions undergraduate research through NEH-funded initiatives like the Developing Boston Harbor Across Time Scales capstone. His collaborative projects with the Boston Public Library's Rare Books Department produced the exhibit Sermons, Slavery, and Scandal: The Printed Worlds of Early Boston, 1660-1830, while courses at the American Antiquarian Society advance environmental history pedagogy.

He cultivates academic communities through team-taught courses on Boston's environmental history and transatlantic literature, leveraging institutional partnerships to create immersive research experiences that connect classroom learning with archival practice and public scholarship.