James F. Harris, 81, eminent scholar of 19th-century German history and longtime dean of the College of Arts and Humanities (ARHU) at the University of Maryland, died Feb. 22, 2022, of heart disease at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. His deanship was marked by numerous academic and philanthropic achievements, including the development of an integrative approach to Middle East studies delivered in part through the creation of the Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies and the Roshan Institute for Persian Studies, the first centers of their kind in the U.S. under his leadership, the college also collaborated with the UMD Libraries and Office of Information Technology to establish the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, which has become a leading intellectual hub and international center for digital humanities.
