Evan Strouss came to Berkeley in the fall of 2018 after receiving his BA in German Studies and Comparative Literature from Brown University, and his MA in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College. His dissertation, "Distant Voices: Vocal Philology in Early Modernity," examines the German folk song tradition in a period spanning 1523-1779. He argues therein that voice takes on a metonymic function with Johann Gottfried von Herder’s two-volume Volkslieder, which inaugurates a tradition of comparative literature that uncritically figures "listening" as an authentic encounter with alterity.

Evan teaches German language as well as Reading & Composition courses. Recent courses have included "Writing Feeling: Melodrama and the Melodramatic," and "How to Be Popular," a course that examined popular forms and texts ranging from the Grimm Fairy Tales to Joni Mitchell's "For the Roses." He works and writes additionally on early modern Italian literature.