Dr. S. Deborah Kang (left) and Dr. Amy Kerner (right) are among the four new tenure-track faculty who have joined the School of Arts and Humanities this fall.
Dr. S. Deborah Kang is an associate professor of history and Fellow of the Anne Stark and Chester Watson Professorship of History. Kang studies immigration issues relating to the U.S.-Mexico border, both past and present. Before coming to UT Dallas, Kang was an associate professor of history at California State University San Marcos and an immigration policy fellow at U.S. Immigration Policy Center at UC San Diego. “There’s a sense of community in the border region. That’s what borderlands studies is all about – the conflicts and cooperation that occur between nation-states along their international borders,” she said.
Dr. Amy Kerner is an assistant professor of Holocaust and human rights studies and Fellow of the Jacqueline and Michael Wald Professorship in Holocaust Studies. Kerner studies modern Europe and modern Latin America, political violence and its legacies, the cultural practices and transformations of immigrants, refugees, and diasporas. Before coming to UT Dallas, Kerner was a research fellow at the Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. She said she was pleased to be in a role that brings Holocaust studies and human rights together, with a focus on Europe and Latin America. “The possibility of being connected to both a history department and to a Holocaust studies center, and to bridge those fields, is very exciting,” said Kerner.