Faculty

Yaakov Ariel, professor, Department of Religious Studies. Areas of research: Jewish-Christian relations; Mission to the Jews and Jewish conversions to Christianity; new Jewish religious movements; American Judaism. Bio.

Karen Auerbach, associate professor, Department of History. Areas of research: modern Jewish history; East European Jewish history; Polish Jews in 19-20th centuries; Jewish publishing in Poland. Bio.

Gabrielle Berlinger, Babette S. and Bernard J. Tanenbaum Scholar in Jewish History and Culture, and associate professor, Department of American Studies. Areas of research: American Jewish folklore (vernacular architecture; ritual; belief; festival; food); Israeli Mizrahi folklore; Jewish ethnology; public folklore; museum anthropology; immigrant studies. Bio.

Danielle Christmas, assistant professor, Department of English & Comparative Literature. Areas of research: representations of Jewish American and African American relations; Holocaust literature and film; 20th century Jewish American literature; 1940s-60s Jewish American media. Bio.

Adam Cohn,   assistant professor of Hispanic and Jewish studies and JMA and Sonja van der Horst Fellow in Jewish Studies in the Department of Romance Studies. Bio.

Andrea Dara Cooper, associate professor, Department of Religious Studies. Leonard and Tobee Kaplan Scholar in Modern Jewish Thought and Culture. Areas of research: modern Jewish thought; gender studies; continental philosophy; medieval Jewish philosophy and mysticism; cultural studies. Bio.

Maria DeGuzman, professor and director of Latina/o Studies, Department of English and Comparative Literature. Co-chair, Hispano-, Latin American-, Latina/o-Jewish Cultural Production Working Group. Bio.

Michael A. Figueroa, associate professor, Department of Music. Areas of research: Israeli and Palestinian music and culture; history of Jerusalem; modern Hebrew literature; music and memory of al-Andalus; cultural performance; cultural geography; music and violence. Bio.

Jeanne Fischer, teaching associate professor in voice, Department of Music. Bio.

Gregory Flaxman, associate professor, Department of English and Adjunct Professor, Department of Communications Studies. Bio.

Jennifer Grayson, assistant professor of medieval/early modern Jewish history and Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat Fellow in Jewish History in the Department of History. Bio.

Jillian Hinderliter, Moses M. and Hannah L. Malkin Fellow in Jewish History and Culture, and assistant professor, Department of Women’s and Gender Studies. Research interests: twentieth century American women’s and gender history, Jewish Studies, the history of medicine and health care in the United States, public history, and oral history.  Bio

Emily Katz, teaching assistant professor in the Department of American Studies. Bio.

Joseph Lam, associate professor of Biblical Hebrew, Department of Religious Studies. Areas of research: Ancient Mediterranean Religions, Hebrew Bible in its ancient Near Eastern context; linguistic approaches  to Biblical Hebrew; comparative Semitic grammar; ritual and cult in the  ancient Near East; metaphor in religious language. Bio.

David Lambert, associate professor of Hebrew Bible, Department of Religious Studies. Areas of research: Hebrew Bible; ancient Israelite religious practices and society; late  Second Temple Judaism; the history of biblical interpretation;  development of religious terminology; Western notions of the self and  interiority; history of Jewish thought. Bio.

Jodi Magness, Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism, Department of Religious Studies. Areas of research: early Judaism; archaeology of Palestine. Bio.

Evyatar Marienberg, associate professor, Department of Religious Studies. Areas of research: Rabbinic Judaism and Jewish law; contemporary Catholicism; regulation of sexuality; social history in the Middle Ages; rituals; reception of Vatican II. Bio.

Adi Nester assistant professor, Levine-Sklut Fellow in Jewish Studies, Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures. Areas of research: interrelations of music, literature, theology, and political theory in the German and German-Jewish traditions.  Bio.

Rosa Perelmuter, professor, Department of Romance Studies. Areas of research: Colonial Spanish American literature, contemporary Spanish American narrative, Latino literature and culture, and Jewish Cuba. Bio.

Michele Rivkin-Fish, associate professor, Department of Anthropology. Areas of research: Medical anthropology, moral economies of medicine and health, gender and health, reproductive politics, health care reform, Russia, United States. Bio.

Eliza Rose, assistant professor, Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures. Areas of research: visual cultures and literature of Poland, Yugoslavia and East and Central Europe, with a special focus on science fiction. Bio.

Patricia Rosenmeyer, director, Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, Seymour & Carol Levin Distinguished Term Professor, and professor, Department of Classics. Areas of research: archaic Greek poetry; Helen of Troy; ancient Greek epistolary fiction; Hellenistic poetry; archaic, Hellenistic and imperial epigram; Ovid; imperial Greek literature; literary theory; and reception studies. Bio.

Yaron Shemer, associate professor of Israel cultural studies in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Areas of research: Ethnic studies, cultural studies, Israeli culture and society, Middle Eastern cinema. Bio.

Jeff Spinner-Halev, Kenan Eminent Professor of Political Ethics in the Department of Political Science.  Areas of research:  national identity, religion and democracy, democratic theory.. Bio.

Hanna Sprintzik, teaching associate professor in Modern Hebrew, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Bio.

Martin Sueldo, teaching associate professor in Spanish, Department of Romance Studies. Bio.

Ruth von Bernuth, professor of early modern German Studies (1500-1750), Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. Areas of research: Medieval and Early modern German and Yiddish literature; folly literature and culture; disability studies. Bio

Visiting Scholars

Jackie Feldman, joining the Department of Anthropology in July 2023 for fall semester. Teaching the course: Israel, Palestine, Holy Land: Tourism Imaginaries and Practices

Emeriti

Marcie Cohen Ferris, Department of American Studies. Areas of research: history of the Jewish south; American Jewish women’s history; American Jewish culture; and the foodways and material culture of the American South. Bio

Jonathan M. Hess. Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures. Areas of research: German-Jewish literature, culture and history. Learn more about Jonathan’s contributions to the Center and the University.

Christopher Browning, Department of History. Area of research: history of the holocaust. Bio.

Madeline Levine, Department of German and Slavic Languages and Literatures.