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. Email: yariel@email.unc.edu
Karen Auerbach, associate professor, Department of History. Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat Scholar in Jewish History. Areas of research: modern Jewish history; East European Jewish history; Polish Jews in 19-20th centuries; Jewish publishing in Poland. Bio. Email: kauerbach@unc.edu
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. Email: gberling@unc.edu
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. Email: dchristmas@unc.edu
Adam Cohen, joining the Department of Romance Studies in July 2023 as an assistant professor of Hispanic and Jewish studies and JMA and Sonja van der Horst Fellow in Jewish Studies.
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. Email: adcooper@email.unc.edu
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. Email: deguzman@email.unc.edu
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. Email: mfigueroa@unc.edu
Jeanne Fischer, teaching associate professor in voice, Department of Music. Bio. Email: fischerj@email.unc.edu
Gregory Flaxman, associate professor, Department of English and Adjunct Professor, Department of Communications Studies. Bio. Email: gflax@email.unc.edu
Jennifer Grayson, joining the Department of History in July 2023 as assistant professor of medieval/early modern Jewish history and Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat Fellow in Jewish History.
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, joining the Department of American Studies in July 2023.
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. Email: jclam@email.unc.edu
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. Email: dalambe@email.unc.edu
Jodi Magness, Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism, Department of Religious Studies. Areas of research: early Judaism; archaeology of Palestine. Bio. Email: magness@email.unc.edu
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. Email: evyatarm@unc.edu
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. Email: rpperelm@email.unc.edu
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. Email: mrfish@unc.edu
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. Email: elizacr@email.unc.edu
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. Email: dir_jewishstudies@unc.edu
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. Email: yshemer@email.unc.edu
Hanna Sprintzik, teaching associate professor in Modern Hebrew, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Bio. Email: hannasp@email.unc.edu
Martin Sueldo, teaching associate professor in Spanish, Department of Romance Studies. Bio. Email: sueldo@email.unc.edu
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.