Search Gustavus

Maddalena Marinari is a Professor of History and the Dorothy Peterson, Mildred Peterson Hanson, and Arthur Jennings Hanson Endowed Professor of Liberal Studies. She is the author of Unwanted: Italian and Jewish Mobilization Against Restrictive Immigration Laws, 1882–1965 (University of North Carolina Press, 2020) and of several articles on immigration restriction, U.S. immigration policy, and immigrant mobilization in the Journal of American History, Journal of Policy History, Journal of American Ethnic History, Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and Social Science History Journal. She has also co-edited four volumes on different aspects of US immigration history in the twentieth century, a special issue of the Journal of American History on the centennials of the immigration restriction acts of the 1920s, and a special issue of the Journal of American Ethnic History on migration and citizenship. Her next book explores the history of family, marriage, and sexuality in U.S. immigration policy from 1875 to 2025. She is also one of the scholars who created the Immigration Syllabus, an online tool for anyone interested in understanding the history behind current debates on immigration, and of Immigrants in COVID America, a curated collection of resources that chronicles the impact of the pandemic on migrant and refugee communities in the United States. Professor Marinari is currently president of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society and Editor in Chief of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Migration Studies. She has received funding from the American Philosophical Society, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the Immigration History Research Center, the Social Science Research Council, and the American Society for Legal History for her research and her public projects.

At Gustavus, she teaches a broad range of courses in U.S. history since 1865 and is an active member of the community. Her service to the College includes her tenure on the Faculty Senate and the Personnel Committee as well as her roles as the Kendall Center Associate for Faculty, Research, and Scholarship and as the Kendall Center Associate for Excellence in Teaching. In 2023, she received the Gustavus Faculty Service Award for her work on the Faculty Task Force. In 2021, Gustavus Adolphus College awarded her the Gustavus Faculty Scholarly Accomplishment Award in recognition of her scholarship accomplishments.

Sharon Marquart is a Professor of French and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, and she also serves as Director of the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies Program. Dr. Marquart is also affiliated with the Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies Program, the Latin American, Latinx, and Caribbean Studies Program, and the Comparative Literature Program. At Gustavus, she teaches courses on global French cinema, graphic novels, and literature, as well as topics such as the Holocaust, revolution and rebellion, feminist philosophy, disability, and trauma testimony. In May term, Dr. Marquart teaches a travel course to Paris that centers the stories of marginalized communities in the city. She holds a PhD in French literature and culture from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and she has taught and studied at universities throughout the United States, Canada, and France.

Dr. Marquart’s research is located at the intersection of feminist philosophy and of literary and cultural studies. Her research has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Lurcy Foundation, and she frequently collaborates on it with students. She has published extensively on issues of gender and trauma in Nazi camp testimonies and, most recently, on the AIDS crisis in the Caribbean. Dr. Marquart is the author of On the Defensive: Reading the Ethical in Nazi Camp Testimonies (University of Toronto Press, 2015), co-editor (with David Caron of the University of Michigan) of a volume of essays published in France on Auschwitz survivor Charlotte Delbo, and her work has been published in The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, French Forum, H-France Forum, The Romanic Review, Ethnologies, and various essay collections on World War II and the Holocaust. She is completing a book on care that features a chapter co-authored with her former student at Gustavus, Ellie Hartmann. Please contact Dr. Marquart for current student research opportunities related to her work.

Dr. Marquart’s interests outside of the classroom include camping, gardening, photography, all things cats, and travel, especially in the French-speaking world. She is an advocate for students, faculty, and staff of all backgrounds and abilities and welcomes discussion about ways to create more inclusive and just communities on campus and beyond.

Saint Peter offers a welcoming college town vibe with nature, local shops, minutes from Mankato with many major stores and malls, and easy access to Minneapolis/St. Paul—perfect for a vibrant Gustavus experience.

Matt Panciera is an associate professor of Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies. He truly enjoys teaching the languages - all levels of Greek and Latin - in addition to a wide range of classical studies courses; everything from Greek tragedy to Roman history. His research focuses on the incredible treasure trove of information found in the Pompeian graffiti scratched into the walls of the ancient city by its beautifully ordinary inhabitants before it was buried under the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. He is extremely grateful to have been awarded on three occasions a NEH Summer Seminar for K-12 teachers where they, together with a team of distinguished scholars, explored the topic of of Roman daily life as seen in the Roman novelist Petronius and the archaeological and epigraphical remains of Pompeii. He has also worked on Roman funerary inscriptions including the epitaph of the unforgettable freedwoman, Allia Potestas.

Matt feels fortunate to have been hired on four different occasions by the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome and he is a passionate advocate for teaching and learning on site. He always finds himself experiencing ideas, making connections, and asking questions that would never occur to him without the inspiration of standing in the place where the ancient Greeks and Romans once lived their lives. He is happy to teach a class where the students "nerd out" and dive deep into the Greeks and Romans for their own sake. But ultimately he believes, both for himself and his students, the greatest benefit of spending time with the Greeks and Romans is how much we learn about ourselves and what we want to make of our own world.  

If pressed, on most days he would say his favorite classical authors to read in the original language are Homer and Ovid. He recognizes the beauty of Greek and the genius of so much that came to fruition in Athens in the 5th century BCE—the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, the birth of western philosophy, tragedy (Sophocles is his favorite)—but he is more at home in Latin and loves the way that reading Petronius and Pompeian graffiti feels like looking through a window directly at the ancient Romans. His favorite classical building is the Pantheon in Rome and his favorite site is Segesta in Sicily.

Outside of work he loves to cook for his family, visit the Boundary Waters, root for all the Boston teams (but also the Vikings), play golf, and exercise.
  

Gustavus has a long history of preparing pastors, chaplains, and other Christian clergy and church leaders. You'll major in Religion, Psychology, English, and/or Philosophy on your way to seminary school and/or graduate theology education. Gustavus's chaplains and academic advisors will assist you in choosing coursework, plugging into student groups, and serving in campus leadership positions.

Professor Julie Gilbert teaches information literacy to students across the curriculum. Her work is grounded in a deep belief that libraries play a vital role in student learning, wellbeing, and belonging, and that equitable access to information is fundamental to academic success and civic engagement. Through her teaching, research, and service, she is committed to making libraries and information accessible to all members of the campus community.

As an educator, Julie collaborates with faculty across disciplines to design instruction that supports students at every stage of their academic journey. Her teaching focuses on critical thinking, research strategies, source evaluation, and the ethical use of information in an increasingly complex landscape. She is especially passionate about demystifying research for students who may feel uncertain or overwhelmed by academic inquiry, and she strives to create learning environments that are inclusive, welcoming, and student-centered. By meeting students where they are, she helps them build confidence as researchers and lifelong learners.

In addition to her academic work, Julie is an award-winning author of books for young readers. Her writing reflects a lifelong engagement with libraries, storytelling, and literacy, and she brings this creative perspective into her teaching and librarianship. She believes strongly in the value of reading for pleasure and its role in intellectual growth, empathy, and wellness. In her role at the library, she takes particular pride in developing and curating collections, with a special emphasis on building vibrant, relevant current fiction holdings that invite students into the library as a place of discovery, connection, and enjoyment.

Julie’s research interests are interdisciplinary and evolving, reflecting the broad and changing role of libraries in higher education. She is especially interested in libraries as wellness spaces and in the ways library environments, services, and collections support not only academic achievement but also mental health, reflection, and community connection. Her work explores how libraries contribute to a holistic student experience and reinforce their importance as both intellectual and restorative centers of campus life.

A certified meditation teacher, Julie also coordinates the Gustavus Meditation Program. Through this work, she integrates contemplative practices into the academic environment and supports students, faculty, and staff in cultivating mindfulness, resilience, and balance. Whether teaching in the classroom, developing collections, supporting research, or leading meditation sessions, Julie’s work is guided by a belief in the transformative power of libraries and learning, and their central role in shaping a meaningful and supportive student experience.

Lisa Heldke teaches in the philosophy department and the gender, women and sexuality studies program, of which she was a founding faculty member. Among her favorite courses to teach are modern philosophy (which, believe it or not, focuses on the eighteenth century); aesthetics; and gender, knowledge and reality. But her real passion is the philosophy of food, which she holds in the teaching kitchen of the Nobel Hall of Science, where students can cook together each week.

The philosophy of food is not only a teaching passion, it has also been a focus of much of her service work on campus. She is the co-founder of the Kitchen Cabinet, an advisory committee to the Gustavus Dining Service that works to enhance the ways it serves the mission of the College. The committee includes representation from all the campus constituencies, including students.

Food is also the focus of Heldke’s scholarly research; she is one of the first contemporary philosophers to treat food as a serious philosophical topic. She is the author or editor of a number of books in the field, including Philosophers at Table: On Food and Being Human; Exotic Appetites: Ruminations of a Food Adventurer; Cooking, Eating Thinking: Transformative Philosophies of Food; and (most recently) Parasitic Personhood and the Ontology of Eating. Her research has led to her being invited to teach each year in a master’s program at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy, a kind of “liberal arts college of food” founded by the Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini. Her scholarly work has also garnered her awards from the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society and the John Dewey Society.

For ten years, she served as director of Gustavus’s Nobel Conference, a role she described as being the “chief learner” for this science-and-ethics extravaganza which is a highlight of the Gustavus academic year, and has brought more than 100 Nobel laureates to campus.

Her newest book project bears the working title “Yurtitude is Experience”; it’s a philosophical exploration of her summertime life in a yurt on the coast of Maine where she lives (mostly) off the grid with her Siberian husky, writing, baking bread in a wood-fired brick oven, and kayaking and sailing in Eggemoggin Reach. Winter finds her and her husky skijoring in the Gustavus Arboretum whenever the snow cover allows.