Roche is the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Professor of German Language and Literature and Concurrent Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.
Roche teaches courses in German language, literature, and culture; in intellectual history; in philosophy; and in film. He also offers integrative courses, such as the College Seminar, which addresses great questions and draws on the arts, humanities, and social sciences. In 2006, Roche received a Kaneb Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. See also teaching.
His publications have been in literature, philosophy, film, and higher education. Roche is the author of seven books. His two most recent are Why Choose the Liberal Arts? (University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), which received the 2012 Frederic W. Ness Book Award from the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and Why Literature Matters in the 21st Century (Yale University Press, 2004), which was chosen as an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice Magazine. See also scholarship and curriculum vitae.
From 1997 to 2008, Roche served as the I. A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters. He arrived at Notre Dame in 1996 after having served 12 years at the Ohio State University, including the final five years as Chairperson of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. See also service.
He received a bachelor’s degree in the History of Ideas from Williams College in 1978, a master’s degree in Philosophy from the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen in Germany in 1980, and a doctorate in German Literature from Princeton University in 1984.
