Dr. Holli Levitsky
Director, Jewish Studies Program
Associate Professor, English
Phone: 310-338-7664
Email: hlevitsk@lmu.edu
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Dr. Holli Levitsky, a specialist in southern American Literature, Jewish American women writers, literary theory, and Holocaust literature, held the 2001-2002 Fulbright Distinguished Chair in American Literature in Poland. She has published articles on William Faulkner, Cynthia Ozick, Sylvia Plath, Annie Dillard, Marge Piercy, Anne Frank, and others. Currently, she is completing two book projects: a study of the ambivalent ethnologies in William Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy and the edited final memoir of the Polish-Jewish writer Sara Nomberg-Przytyk.
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Amir Hussain is Professor of Theological Studies at LMU, where he teaches courses on Islam and world religions. A Fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, Amir was selected by student vote as LMU Professor of the Year in 2008 and 2009. His most recent book is Oil and Water: Two Faiths, One God; an introduction to Islam for a North American audience. For 2011 to 2015, he will be the editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.
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Dr. Amy Shevitz
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| Dr. Amy Shevitz teaches Modern Jewish History at Loyola Marymount University. In addition, she teaches American Jewish history and American Religion at California State University, Northridge. She earned her undergraduate degree from Smith College and her Ph.D. in American history from the University of Oklahoma.
Dr. Shevitz has written a book, Jewish Communities on the Ohio River, which was published by University Press of Kentucky in 2007. Her current research interest is Jews in the American West, and she has started a project on the Jews of the San Fernando Valley in the post-World War II period.
In her spare time, she attends ballet classes and plays the violin in the Palisades Symphony. Her husband and she live in Venice with their Moluccan cockatoo; their married daughter and two sons all live on the East Coast.
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Dr. Elizabeth Drummond
Assistant Professor, History, European Studies, Jewish Studies, and Women's Studies
Elizabeth.Drummond@lmu.edu
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Elizabeth A. Drummond is an assistant professor of modern European history and is affiliated with the Jewish Studies, European Studies, and Women's Studies programs at LMU. Her current project is a cultural history of the German-Polish national conflict in the province of Poznania before World War I, a manuscript entitled To Each His Own: National Identity and Nationalist Mobilization in a German-Polish Borderland, 1886-1914. She has published articles on the "Jewish question" in the context of the German-Polish national conflict, on the role of women in the conflict, on images of modernity and nature in nationalist discourses, and on the significance of World War I for Germans in the eastern borderlands. She has also contributed entries to the Encyclopedia of Antisemitism and has articles in progress on the intersections of literature and history in the German-Polish conflict and on the use of textbooks in the fashioning of a German national identity.
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Saba Soomekh is a Theological Studies professor at Loyola Marymount University. She received her BA in Religious Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, her Masters in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and her PhD in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She currently teaches courses on Judaism, World Religions, Women and Religion and the History of Modern Israel and Iran. Her book, "Between Religion and Culture: Three Generations of Iranian Jewish Women from the Shahs to Los Angeles," will be published by SUNY Press.
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David Greenfield in an Instructional Technology Analyst at LMU where he assists faculty in indentifying and integrating new technologies into their teaching to better engage today’s students. He has an undergraduate degree in Jewish Studies and a Master’s degree in Educational Technology from Pepperdine University (where he is currently pursuing a doctorate in Learning Technologies). Additionally he has lived in Israel on kibbutz and as well as serving in the IDF. Professionally, he has been working in New and Interactive media for over 20 years, including holding positions at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles as well as Hebrew Union College. His professional focus has been on the use of the Internet for creating global communities of learners and also multi-institutional collaboration. David taught and lectured at the University of Judaism (philosophy and application of new media, and building web sites), LMU (Jewish Graphic Novels), and has presented papers on virtual collaboration, Web 2.0 technologies and similar topics at the annual Museums and the Web conference, Educause and CAJE. |
Dr. Michael Halperin
Part-time Professor
School of Film and Television, Jewish Studies
mhalperin@lmu.edu
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Michael Halperin , Ph.D. teaches media and screenwriting in LMU’s School of Film and Television while continuing his writing career. He was a Story Editor for Universal Television and Executive Story Consultant at 20th Century-Fox and wrote numerous episodes for long-running television series. With Rabbi Harold Schulweis, Halperin edited the anthology “Judaism: Embracing the Seeker”, KTAV Publishing, 2010. "We Shall Survive", his screenplay about the Holocaust written under a grant from the NEH, has been optioned as feature film. His produced plays are: “Freedom, Texas” produced by the Celebrity Staged Reading Series in October 2009, published by JAC Publications. “Mela”, performed as a staged reading in Santa Monica, 2009 and in August 2004 in Jerusalem in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Yad Vashem. “The Spark of Reason” (Dorothy Silver Playwriting Finalist) at the Promenade Playhouse, Santa Monica, 2008, published by JAC Publications. “Dancing With William Blake” was chosen in 2007 for inclusion in the Lawrence and Lee Archives of the Ohio State University Libraries by the Eileen Heckert Playwriting Competition . “All Steps Necessary”, commissioned and produced by Inkwell Theater, premiered April 2006 in Los Angeles. His novels include the Young Adult book “Black Wheels”, chosen by the National Education Assn. for its prestigious African American Booklist 2005 through 2010 and the best-selling award-winning novel for children “Jacob’s Rescue: A Holocaust Story”, Random House. Non-fiction: “Writing Great Characters”, Lone Eagle; “Writing the Second Act”, MWP; and “Writing the Killer Treatment”, MWP. He received his BA Degree in Communications from the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communications and a has a Ph.D. in Film Studies.
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Mark’s main research interest is in the Sociology and Anthropology of Education, especially with respect to the subcultures of terminal degree recipients in the fields of medicine and law. Mark earned his Juris Doctorate from Chapman University School of Law and his M.A. degree in Anthropology from California State University L.A.. Since 2001, he has taught as Adjunct Faculty in the Anthropology, Sociology, Humanities, and Jewish studies departments at nine of the local colleges and universities. Mark also practices Family, Bankruptcy and Estate Planning law from his small boutique law firm in Los Angeles, Res Judicata. Mark’s recent publications, in conjunction with UCLA’s Jules Stein Eye Institute, have explored the social science aspects of patient quality of life, Grave’s Eye Disease, and the implications of facial symmetry. In his spare time he has served as coach of the CSULA mock trial team, and volunteered as a Spanish/English translator at LA County General Hospital and the Oscar Romero Clinic in Los Angeles. Mark enjoys boating, ice hockey, and all things Art Deco, and lives in Los Angeles with his two border collies. |
Dr. Feryal Cherif
Assistant Professor, Political Science
Phone: 310-338-1667
Email: feryal.cherif@lmu.edu
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Feryal Cherif is an assistant professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University. She studies international relations and politics of the Middle East with an emphasis on gender and human rights. She received her Ph.D. from NYU in 2005. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Politics and International Studies Quarterly among others. She is currently finishing her book manuscript From Ideas to Action: Myths and Misunderstandings about Advancements in Women’s Rights. In addition to teaching classes on international relations, gender, and human rights, she was the founding chair of the Middle East and Islamic Studies minor the University of California, Riverside. She has made media appearances, in outlets including CNN. In 2007, she was the inaugural recipient of the Faculty Diversity Award for her mentorship of minority students at the University of California, Riverside.
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Dr. Gil Klein
Assistant Professor, Theological Studies
Phone: 310-338-1732
Email: gklein1@lmu.edu
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B.Arch.,
Bezalel Academy, 1998; M. Phil., Cambridge University, 2003; Ph.D.,
Cambridge University, 2007. Dr. Klein specializes in the study of late
antique rabbinic Judaism in correspondence with the discipline of
architectural history and theory.
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