Head of College Office Staff

​Head of College Paul North

Paul North, Maurice Natason Professor of German,  is a critical theorist and faculty member in the Yale German Department. His three books are theoretical studies with broad impact for the contemporary world. Bizarre Privileged Items in the Universe: The Logic of Likeness (Zone Books 2021) is the first philosophical theory of the phenomenon of “likeness” across the natural sciences, philosophy, art, and everyday life. The Yield: Kafka’s Atheological Reformation (Stanford 2015) proposes a political program based on not using power, “yielding.” And The Problem of Distraction (Stanford 2012) argues that a fuller, more radical kind of mental movement, released from comparison to “attention,” is the basis for real social change. North has also published dozens of articles and is currently working on Karl Marx’s political economy and the transformations of critical theory in the “global south.”

You can reach him at paul.a.north@yale.edu.

                                      

At Yale, North has held leadership roles in many areas, including the executive committee of the Humanities Program and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Senate. He serves on the editorial board of the journal Diacritics, as a series editor at Fordham University Press, and his research has been supported by the German government, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and other organizations. He is most proud of his involvement with the Yale Prison Education Initiative.

Head North grew up in Westchester County, New York. He earned his B.A. in English literature from SUNY Binghamton, M.A. in comparative literature from the CUNY Graduate Center, and Ph.D. in comparative literary studies from Northwestern University. When he was a graduate student, he met his partner, Carolina Baffi, while conducting research in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she spent her formative years.

 

Carolina Baffi will serve as the associate head of college. She
earned her Ph.D. in Latin American literatures and cultures from
Columbia University and is Senior Lector in Yale’s Department of
Spanish and Portuguese. Her area of specialty is
twentieth-century Latin American literature. 

                               Joining them are their two children: Theo, 14, and Callie, 9.                                           

 

Head of College Office Staff

Gygi Jennings | Assistant Director of Operations, Jonathan Edwards College

203-432-8839

gygi.jennings@yale.edu

Nicole Wade | Sr. Administrative Asst. II, Jonathan Edwards College Head’s Office

203-432-0380

nicole.wade@yale.edu

Shannon Terebesi | Residential College Service Assistant II, Jonathan Edwards College

shannon.terebesi@yale.edu