Mieke Bal is back by popular demand. Having served as a Fellow of the Society of the Humanities in 1996-97, the founding director of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis and professor of the theory of literature at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands returns to Cornell University as an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large, Nov. 8-23.

In addition to her work with graduate and undergraduate students and faculty here, Bal will deliver a public lecture titled "Sticky Images: Time and Still Image in the Age of Material Corruption," Wednesday, Nov. 11, at 4:30 p.m. in Goldwin Smith Hall's Kaufmann Auditorium. She also will present a paper titled "Aestheticizing Catastrophe" during a symposium sponsored by the Institute for German Cultural Studies, Sunday, Nov. 22, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Guerlac Room at the A.D. White House. The symposium will focus on the work of Charlotte Salomon, an increasingly recognized Berlin-born artist who chronicled her life and the life of her family in an extraordinary series of over 1,000 gouaches with text produced between 1940 and 1942, prior to her deportation to Auschwitz, where she died.

Both events are free and open to the public.

Bal has revolutionized interdisciplinary studies in the theoretical and analytical fields of literature, visual arts and religion and is a leading scholar on the relations between verbal and the visual arts. She brings a strong feminist agenda to her work and is highly regarded for her methodology of interdisciplinary approaches.

"A huge number of people wrote in support of her nomination, and she is highly accessible to graduate and undergraduate students," said Michael Steinberg, associate professor of history at Cornell.

"She is known for her generosity and the time she is willing to spend with students. As an A.D. White professor, she will carry all the duties of a regular faculty member and will be available to advise and work with students and participate in classes."

The Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis is a leading graduate institution that grants doctorates within a wide interdisciplinary model that includes literature, film,

philosophy and cultural history. Since founding the school in 1994, Bal herself has directed more than 30 doctoral dissertations.

"Her presence here should be extremely inspiring for the current generation of graduate as well as undergraduate students at Cornell," Steinberg said.

The Andrew D. White Professors-at-Large program was inaugurated in 1965 to bring distinguished scholars to the Cornell campus for formal and informal exchanges with faculty and students.