Mailing Address: 12 College Avenue
Research Interests
- Jewish memory practices, centering on remembering the Holocaust and prewar Jewish life in Eastern Europe
- Jewish cultural history, centering on the role of communications media, museums, tourism, and visual culture
- Intellectual history of Jewish Studies, especially ethnographic studies of Jewish life in Eastern Europe and America
- Digital humanities in Jewish Studies, centering on archiving, narrative, inventory as a practice of modern Jewish culture
- Yiddish language, literature and culture, centering on language and culture, translation, language learning, Yiddish after World War II
Regularly Taught Courses
Publications
- Yiddish: Biography of a Language (Oxford University Press, 2020).
- Holocaust Memory in the Digital Age: Survivors’ Stories and New Media Practices (Stanford University Press, 2017).
- Shtetl: A Vernacular Intellectual History (Rutgers University Press, 2014).
- Co-editor, with Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, of Anne Frank Unbound: Media, Imagination, Memory
(Indiana University Press, 2012). - Jews, God, and Videotape: Religion and Media in America (New York University Press, 2009).
- Translator, of Emil and Karl, by Yankev Glatshteyn (Roaring Brook Press, 2006).
- Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture (University of California Press, 2005).
- Co-author/co-editor, with J. Hoberman, of Entertaining America: Jews, Movies and Broadcasting (Princeton University Press/The Jewish Museum, New York, 2003).
- Editor of Awakening Lives: Autobiographies of Jewish Youth in Poland before the Holocaust (Yale University Press/YIVO Institute, 2002).
- Co-editor, with Hasia Diner and Beth S. Wenger, of Remembering the Lower East Side: American Jewish Reflections (Indiana University Press, 2000).
- While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust (Oxford University Press, 1999).
- Co-editor, with Dina Abramowicz, of Profiles of a Lost World: Memoirs of East European Jewish Life before World War II by Hirsz Abramowicz, trans. Eva Zeitlin Dobkin (Wayne State University Press/YIVO Institute, 1999).
- Co-author/co-editor, with Beth S. Wenger, of Encounters with the Holy Land: Place, Past and Future in American Jewish Culture (Brandeis University Press/Center for Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania /National Museum of American Jewish History, 1997).
- Editor of The Life and Work of S. M. Dubnov: Diaspora Nationalism and Jewish History by Sophie Dubnov-Erlich, trans. Judith Vowles (Indiana University Press/YIVO Institute, 1991).
Professional Affiliations
- Rutgers University Press, co-editor (with Marcy Brink-Danan) of book series, Jewish Cultures of the World.
- American Academy for Jewish Research: Fellow, 2012 - present.
- American Jewish Historical Society: Academic Council (2001 – 2015); Executive Committee of the Academic Council (2006 – 2008).
- Association for Jewish Studies: Board of Directors, 2003-2007, 2009-present; Vice President for Publications, 2009-2011; President, 2011-2013.
- Center for Jewish History, New York, Academic Advisory Council of the (2004 – 2014); Co-chair (2006 – 2011).
- Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, University of Michigan Ann Arbor: Academic Advisory Council (2015 – present).
- George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention, American University of Paris: member, scientific committee (2016 – present).