F&M Stories

Professor Scott Lerner, a scholar of Italian and French literature and history, and an expert on the Jewish experience in 19th- and 20th-century Italy, blends intellectual rigor with exceptional teaching. For well over two decades, his pursuit of excellence and dedication to student success have made him a renowned teacher, mentor, and role model. He immerses students in language, encouraging them to explore themes like memory and trauma while honing their analysis of expression and storytelling.

Professor Lerner fosters an approach to the humanities that prioritizes experiential learning. When he taught a course on the career of Napoleon, he asked his students to create an associated exhibit for the Phillips Museum of Art, using rare books and artifacts from F&M’s Special Collections. This project reminded students of the materiality of history and provided a tangible framework for the knowledge they acquired. Furthermore, during a summer course on Sicilian writers taught in Tuscany, Professor Lerner co-led a trip to Sicily itself. By encountering both places directly, students learned to fully appreciate the contrasting socioeconomic realities depicted by authors who grew up in a rural setting and wrote about urban life.

When Professor Lerner developed a new direction for the F&M in Tuscany program, he chose an approach that stimulates historical understanding through role playing. Drawing on his archival research, he constructed a scenario based on a 19th-century conflict on the border between the Duchy of Tuscany and the Papal States, centered on Gentile Urbino, a 12-year-old Jewish girl allegedly kidnapped and transported to Rome in order to be baptized. Team-teaching with Professor Giovanna Faleschini Lerner, he led students in an intensive seminar to familiarize them with the history, theology, and political philosophy they would need in order to impersonate their character. He later adapted this exercise in historical imagination for use on campus in Lancaster. Students who have participated in reenacting the story of Gentile Urbino and her contemporaries describe the experience as deeply fulfilling, because it challenges them to set aside their own beliefs while grappling with complex questions of faith, politics, and identity.

By providing students with the intellectual tools to connect the past to the present, Professor Lerner prepares them for the real-life role of informed and empathetic citizens who are sensitive to the historical roots of vexing circumstances and can consider intricate problems from multiple perspectives. Through his many contributions to the general education curriculum and the Posse Program, and his mentoring of students and faculty members, Professor Lerner has helped to shape the collective identity of F&M. He represents the best of what it means to be an educator and scholar at this institution.

Professor Scott Lerner, Arthur and Katherine Shadek Professor of Humanities and French and Italian, Department Chair of Italian Studies & Hebrew, Program Chair of Judaic Studies

Professor Scott Lerner, Arthur and Katherine Shadek Professor of Humanities and French and Italian, Department Chair of Italian Studies & Hebrew, Program Chair of Judaic Studies

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