Bio
William H. Carter is Associate Professor of German Studies and Director of International Studies. His research interests begin in the Age of Goethe and include: the Faust tradition; intersections of literature, philosophy, and economic thought from the eighteenth century to the present; Austrian studies; film; finance and society; and behavioral economics. He has published articles in the Goethe Yearbook, Herder Jahrbuch/Yearbook, Colloquia Germanica, Monatshefte, German Studies Review, The German Quarterly. He was president of the Iowa Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of German, has served on the AP German Development Committee, and is the Secretary-Treasure of the Goethe Society of North America.
Courses Taught (Past & Present)
ANTHR/WLC 2100: Introduction to Asian American Studies (Online)
GER 4760: Back to the Future: German Cultural History from its Origins to the Present
GER 3750: Grimms’ Tales
GER 3710: The Holocaust in Text, Image, and Memory (Online)
GER 3300: German Literature and Culture: Fate, Chance, Accident
GER 3050: Conversation
GER 3020: Composition
GER 3010: Reading
GER 2010: Intermediate German I
GER 1020: Elementary German II
GER 1010: Elementary German I
HON 3210N: The History and Ethics of Debt
Research Areas
The Faust tradition; intersections of literature, philosophy, and economic thought from the eighteenth century to the present; Austrian studies; film; finance and society; behavioral economics
Selected Publications & Awards
- “Introduction to Special Section: Gambling in the Age of Goethe,” Goethe Yearbook 32 (2025): 79-82.
- “Gambles, Decision-Making, and Loss Aversion in Faust I,” Goethe Yearbook 32 (2025): 149-64.
- “Money, Violence, and the Financialized Self in Michael Haneke’s ‘Glaciation Trilogy,’” The German Quarterly 94.1 (2021): 116-30.
- “Intersections of Money, Debt, and Uncertainty in Rabinovici’s Suche nach M.,” German Studies Review 41.2 (2018): 297-314.
- “Spielerische Gedanken: Economic Crisis and Speculation in Hugo Bettauer’s Die Stadt ohne Juden and its Adaptation by Hans Karl Breslauer,” Journal of Austrian Studies 49.3 (2016) [published 2017]: 1-16.
- “Die Ketten [. . .] mit der Zeit lieben lernen”: Herder’s Reflections on Individual Freedom and the Political Liberty in the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit,” Herder Jahrbuch/Yearbook 13 (2016): 63-83.
- “Administration and its Vicissitudes: Contingency, Crisis, and Failure in Justus Möser’s “Kurze Geschichte der Bauerhöfe” and Goethe’s Faust II,” Monatshefte für deutschsprachige Literatur und Kultur 106.4 (2014): 563-82.
- “Faust’s Begehren: Revisiting the History of Political Economy in Faust II,” Goethe Yearbook 21 (2014): 103-28.
- Shakeshaft Master Teacher Award in Humanities and Social Sciences (2021-2022)
Outside the university
I enjoy riding my classic Harley and playing golf when I can.