Dr. Jan Feldman, University of Vermont.
HBI Scholar-in-Residence: June – September, 2008.
Jan Feldman is an Associate Professor and Researcher of political thought and international politics at the University of Vermont. She received her Bachelor’s Degree at Swarthmore College, and both her Master’s and Ph.D. at Cornell University. She is widely traveled, fluent in several languages, and has published works in the fields of Soviet political theory, the post-Soviet transition to democracy, trade policy, and population theory. One such book includes Lubavitchers as Citizens: A Paradox of Liberal Democracy. While at the HBI, Dr. Feldman will look at the women who as faithful committed members of traditional religions deploy their civic citizenship rights in attempts to reform their religions. She will use theoretical materials and open-ended interviews with the purpose of understanding women who challenge the male-dominated overlay of the interpretation of sacred religious texts.
Janice Fernheimer, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
HBI Scholar-in-Residence: August – December, 2008.
Janice Fernheimer received her Ph.D. in Rhetoric, Writing and American Literature from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006. She is currently based at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York where she teaches undergraduate writing courses that investigate how new technologies affect our communication. She also teaches a graduate course that helps graduate students learn about and develop their own pedagogy. She is developing another undergraduate writing course that will focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Janice will be working on her book manuscript Steppin’ Into Zion: The Rhetoric of Black Jewish Identity from Civil Rights to Black Power, which is based on her doctoral thesis. The book will tell the rhetorical history of Hatzaad Harishon , a non-profit organization founded by white, liberal Jews to improve relations among Jews of all colors in Manhattan from 1964-1972. Janice plans to take a gendered approach to the reexamination of her research, and will put particular emphasis on the roles of the exceptional women in leadership positions within the organization.
Vanessa Paloma, Independent Scholar, Soloist, Performance Artist, Writer and Lecturer.
HBI Scholar-in-Residence: August – December, 2008.
Vanessa Paloma is active as a soloist, performance artist, writer and lecturer. She founded and co-directs Flor de Serena, a Judeo-Spanish ensemble based in Los Angeles, and has toured a solo show, Sephardic Songs of the Sea, combining Ladino songs and kabbalistic teachings. Vanessa has recently published her first book entitled, Mystic Siren: Woman's Voice in the Balance of Creation. In addition, Vanessa leads workshops and gives classes on Jewish mysticism, Sephardic culture and women's religious expression.
Vanessa Paloma focuses on the links between women, spirituality and creativity. While at the HBI, she plans to write about the formulation of identity through the eyes of women by analyzing secular women’s songs of the Spanish-speaking Jewish population of Morocco. Her project is composed of three components including a book on Sephardic women’s songs of Northern Morocco, a songbook for the public containing historical and societal information on women singers and their lives in the Moroccan ghettos, and the development of a performance incorporating music and cultural information.
Maina Chawla Singh, University of Delhi (India).
HBI Scholar-in-Residence: September – October, 2008.
Maina Chawla Singh teaches at the College of Vocational Studies (University of Delhi). From 2005 to 2008, Singh researched and lectured in Israel at Bar-Ilan, Haifa and Tel Aviv universities. Her previous research focused on gender and colonialism and in addition to numerous essays and articles, Singh is the author of Gender, Religion, and “Heathern Lands’: American Missionary Women in South Asia (1860s – 1940s), (New York: 2000). She has lectured at universities in the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere.
Maina Chawla Singh’s research focuses on the community of Indian Jews in Israel. Based on field-work done in Israel(2005-8), the study examines issues of ethnicity, migration and diasporic identities. Within the wider research, a special project focuses on the narratives of first-generation Indian-Jewish women who came from Bombay, Calcutta and Cochin in the 1950s, ’60s , and ’70s and were settled in moshavs, ‘development towns’ and elsewhere in Israel. Singh examines ‘Profiles’ of women to show how ethnicity and religion intersect with gender to shape women’s lives both in matters of home and family as well as, in the ‘public sphere’ of work and professions. Her research is planned as an edited volume.
Shulamit Gilboa, Independent Poet, Novelist, Journalist.
HBI Scholar-in-Residence: September – December, 2008.
Shulamit Gilboa holds a BA in Hebrew literature and an MA in philosophy from Tel Aviv University. Since 1984, she has been deputy literary editor and since 2005 she has been the literary editor in chief of the daily Yedioth Ahronoth. During those years she also wrote a weekly book column. She received the Tel Aviv Literature and Art Foundation Award and a writing stipend at Oxford in 1999. Her bestseller, Four Men and a Woman, was awarded the Book Publishers Association's Gold and Platinum Book Prizes (2000). Alma's Way, also a bestseller, was awarded the Book Publishers Association's Gold Book Prizes (2003).
Shulamit Gilboa will prepare and write her next novel about the lives of four siblings and the complex relationships within a family. The novel narrates the lives of a sister and her three brothers, and describes through their interactions the development of each of them from infancy to adulthood. The events depict the struggles within the family, the different attitudes each of the siblings has towards the parents, and their individual views, beliefs and expressions. The plot, which takes place in Israel and in Boston, focuses on the youngest sister, who while writing a paper about Gender and Family, projects about her own life, the lives of her brothers and their surroundings, and the events that take place during the 30+ year span of the story.
Judith Katz, University of Minnesota, Instructor, Jewish Studies, Creative Writer.
HBI Scholar-in-Residence: September – December, 2008.
Judith Katz is the author of two published novels, The Escape Artist, and Running Fiercely Toward a High Thin Sound, which won a Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Fiction. Among her numerous awards and grants she has received Bush Foundation, McKnight Foundation, and National Endowment fellowships for fiction, as well as two Minnesota State Arts Board Grants. She teaches cultural studies and literature courses for both the University of Minnesota’s Center for Jewish Studies and the department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, as well as creative writing courses for the Hamline University MFA program.
At the HBI, Judith will be working on her novel, Atomic Age. Atomic Age looks at the lives of two Worcester Jewish families during the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s. Set against a backdrop of the development of the atomic bomb, the creation of the new state of Israel, and the arrests and executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Atomic Age asks the following questions: How does the unfolding of community histories impact and influence the history of a family and its individual members? How does a family outsider experience that history? How does she contribute to the family narrative? Understand it? Repair it?
Dr. Corrine Ducey, University of Nottingham.
HBI Scholar-in-Residence: January – May, 2009.
Corrine Ducey received her Ph.D. in Russian/Holocaust Studies at the University of Nottingham in July 2007. Previous to her time there, she completed an honors undergraduate degree at Princeton University where she wrote her senior thesis on the “Democratisation of Germany after 1945,” which addressed the role of the memory of the war, the Holocaust and German political culture on the development of German democracy.
Corrine Ducey’s proposed book-length project will examine the philosophical, social and political issues that influenced the discourse surrounding both the Holocaust and Anne Frank over the decades, including the need to focus on life-affirming lessons, the universalization of suffering, the role of iconic symbols in the representation of tragedy and the reluctance to directly confront the horrors of the Holocaust. The project will also examine the role of Anne’s gender in her popularity, focusing on the dynamic between victimhood and resistance.
Hagar Lahav, Sapir Academic College.
HBI Scholar-in-Residence: January – May, 2009.
Hagar Lahav is the head of the Journalism Program in the School of Communication at Sapir Academic College in Israel. She specializes in feminist politics, journalism studies and feminist media studies. Hagar has recently become increasingly engrossed in feminist theology and Jewish studies. In her work in this field she combines post-secular theories with political theology. Prior to completing her doctorate, Hagar was the Deputy Head of the News Division of the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz. She received her Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University in 2006.
Hagar Lahav will examine the idea that perceptions of God, which appear in several Jewish theological writings, can empower secular women’s self-autonomy. She aims to answer two major questions, How can she, as an atheist, bring God into her life, so that she can use this force? And which kind of God should it be, so that it will meet her feminist perspective and goals? Her study will focus on the writings of 20th century Jewish thinkers that were inspired by Hassidic and Psycho-Kabbalh mysticism, such as Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag and the philosophers Martin Buber and A.D Gordon.
Susan Shapiro, University of Massachusetts.
HBI Scholar-in-Residence: January – May, 2009.
Susan Shapiro is Associate Professor of Judaic & Near Eastern Studies and Director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has also taught at Columbia University, Hebrew University's Rothberg School, University of Delaware, and at Syracuse University. Susan is the author of Recovering the Sacred: Ethics, Hermeneutics and Theology after the Holocaust (forthcoming).
Until recently there has been virtually no gender-oriented analysis within Jewish philosophy. Susan Shapiro will begin remedy this situation with her project which systematically treats a range of Jewish philosophers and makes a sustained argument about the ways in which these texts/philosophers are interrelated as regards to their treatment of the body, gender, and women, forming a specific strand of Jewish philosophy. She focuses on the strand of Jewish philosophy which begins with Moses Maimonides and goes through Emmanuel Levinas. By employing practices she terms “reading for gender,” the genealogy and consequences of the gender-ideologies of these texts are explicated.
Ornit Barkai, Independent Filmaker.
HBI Scholar-in-Residence: June-August 2009.
Ornit Barkai's film credits include the documentaries From Anne Frank's Window, A Day in Poland, Past Forward (work-in-progress) which all explore post-Holocaust narratives from multi-generational perspectives, A Moment of Silence and Manhattan Moments which highlight 9/11 themes, and Let Them Fly which documents Jewish youth leadership in New England and is part of the media curriculum of the Boston Bureau of Jewish Education. Ornit offers diverse media production and broadcasting experience with regional and national radio and TV stations and international programming. She holds an M.A. in Mass Communications/TV Production emphasis from Emerson College.
At the HBI Ornit Barkai will carry out pre-production research for a documentary film on “The Polaccas” (Polish women in Spanish), young women from the shtetls of Eastern Europe who were forced into prostitution in Argentina and Brazil by members of the Argentinean Jewish crime ring Zwi Migdal during the 19th and early 20th century. Working in a cinema verite style, Ornit aims to make a documentary that will offer a glimpse of the historic consequences of the ordeal of these tragic women.
Catherine Chatterley, University of Winnipeg, Assistant Professor, Department of History.
HBI Scholar-in-Residence: June – August, 2009.
Catherine Chatterley is Assistant Professor of Modern European and Jewish History at the University of Winnipeg in Canada. Having recently completed her doctoral dissertation on the work of George Steiner at the University of Chicago, she is currently preparing a book entitled Disenchantment: George Steiner and the Meaning of Western Culture After Auschwitz.
Catherine Chatterley will work on her second book project entitled, Worth A Thousand Words: Picturing the Antisemitic Imagination, in which she argues that images have been, and unfortunately continue to be, the most enduring and insidious weapon in the antisemitic arsenal. This work will attempt to determine what purpose these images serve for the people who create and digest them, and how they reflect the fears, anxieties, attitudes, and assumptions of their creators. Through a comparative analysis of images from Christian Europe, Nazi Germany, and the Middle East, Dr. Chatterley hopes to provide additional insight into the nature and history of antisemitism. One of the key concerns of her work will be the operation of gender in antisemitic imagery. She will investigate what these gendered images tell us about the nature and meaning of both antisemitism and gender as historical-cultural products, and about the human contexts that produce and consume these images.
Michal Ben Ya’akov, Efrata College for Education, Lecturer, History Department.
HBI Scholar-in-Residence: Summer, 2009.
Michal Ben Ya’akov’s academic research centers around 19th and early 20th century Eretz-Israel, with special emphasis on North African and Sephardi Jewry. In recent years she has focused on Jewish women, particularly, but not exclusively in those communities. More recently she has focused on widows, both in these communities and in other settings. Combining her academic interests with her work teaching at the Efrata College of Education in Jerusalem, she has done research on the history of the school, originally the Mizrachi College for Women. She received her Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2002.
Michal Ben Ya’akov’s project at the HBI will focus on the changing lives of Jewish immigrant widows from North Africa living in the various urban centers of 19th century Palestine. She will compare the widows' lives to those of widows in the communities of origin, as well as with those in other communities of the Holy Land, primarily Sephardi Jews from the Mediterranean Basin. Personal and communal resources meshed into new and changing networks and support systems, often defined by gender and personal status. These will be examined in light of theoretical and comparative research on widows in the fields of gender studies, geography, demography, economics, sociology and anthropology.
Past Scholars-in-Residence
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