This fall, two of NYU’s most established study away sites welcome new directors: Dr. Jill Lane at NYU Madrid and Dr. Peter Zusi at NYU Prague. Both bring long-standing connections to their host cities and deep expertise in their fields.
Dr. Lane, a longtime professor in NYU’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, focuses on performance and visual culture with particular attention to race and racialization in the Spanish-speaking world. Her upbringing in Spain and Greece makes her especially attuned to how students experience Madrid as a place to live and learn.
Dr. Zusi, recently a professor at University College London, has taught Czech, German, and comparative literature, and has served in various academic leadership roles. With personal and professional ties to Prague spanning three decades, including a course he taught at NYU Prague in 2007, he brings a distinctive perspective on the city’s layered history and cultural life.
We spoke with them about what drew them to these roles, their visions for the sites, and what excites them most as they begin this new chapter.
What drew each of you to your role?
Lane: I have a real passion for international education grounded in my own transnational upbringing in Spain and Greece. From the very beginning, I’ve felt in touch with NYU’s signature commitment to global education, and that has been part of all the different kinds of work I’ve done since then—hence my real excitement at this opportunity.
Zusi: I’m still quite new here, but at the same time, I’m incredibly old here because I taught a course at NYU Prague 17 years ago on Kafka and his contexts. My wife is Czech, so we’ve lived in Prague at various stages of our lives. When this position opened up, I thought it sounded very attractive, and I remembered what a great environment it was. It just seemed meant to happen.
Both Madrid and Prague have such rich, complex histories. How do you see students engaging with these cities as part of their studies?
Lane: The bottom line has everything to do with experiential learning. We teach classes whose express purpose is to teach Madrid behind the scenes and foster experiences that will deepen their understanding of the city.
Zusi: Prague has these historical layerings and complexities that are fascinating. It’s part of the Czech Republic, part of Czechoslovakia, part of the multinational Habsburg empire, even further back the medieval kingdom of Bohemia. That’s a challenge for students to navigate but also a real opportunity to see Europe from a slightly unusual angle.
What areas of study do you think are especially well-served by your site?
Lane: Madrid remains a great place for Spanish majors, but the site has really diversified. We offer courses for Stern students, Liberal Studies, even premed students trying to fit things in.
Zusi: We have particular strengths in music, film, media technology, journalism, and business. Naturally, we also have a range of courses linked to Prague’s cultural history, social developments, and the communist and postcommunist periods.
What goals do you have for the site moving forward?
Lane: One of the goals of any director of a study away site is to create a vibrant experience that can capitalize on that diversity of students who come with different educational pathways and goals and also personal and social interests. There’s also been an uptick in the number of students studying away in Spain who have a Latin American background, so we have an opportunity to think about that constituency. I want to think about how the site displays and engages with its Atlantic connections in the past and present.
Zusi: I’d love to develop our humanities and social science offerings into a more coherent whole and to make NYU Prague more of a resource for the Russian and Slavic Studies department in New York City as well as more of a cultural resource both in the city and across Central Europe. I also want to develop various contacts here to make NYU Prague a venue for international events and conferences, where Prague represents the middle ground between scholars from different areas.
Dr. Lane, what’s one spot you’d recommend to visitors?
Lane: I have a lifelong love affair with Madrid that’s grounded in my childhood. One of my favorite areas is La Latina, one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. It’s filled with winding little streets that crisscross and have hundreds of years of history.
Dr. Zusi, what’s the biggest change you’ve noticed in Prague over the years?
Zusi: The city is much less postsocialist than it was when I lived here in the ’90s. Now, things have become much more regularized, in many senses more commercialized, but also the city just feels cleaner, brighter, and more energetic.
This story is contributed by Dana Guterman.