NEW YORK – The Center for Jewish History continues its rich tradition of academic leadership with the announcement of a new class of Fellows for the 2016 – 2017 year. Representing various disciplines and expertise, the Fellows will conduct original research using the Center and partner collections – the world’s largest and most comprehensive archive of the modern Jewish experience outside of Israel.
“We welcome this year’s fellows to the Center. These talented scholars will spend 10 months immersed in the Center for Jewish History’s rich archival collections and will become full participants in its dynamic intellectual culture. Through its fellowship program, the Center brings together experienced senior academics with promising young scholars and helps to ensure the future of Jewish Studies,” said Beth S. Wenger, Chair of the Center's Academic Advisory Council and Chair of the University of Pennsylvania History Department.
Now in its 15th year, the Center’s Fellowship program offers financial support to humanities scholars, across different stages of their careers. This distinguished community of scholars has used the Center’s resources to produce scholarship that adds to historical knowledge and advances the field of Jewish Studies. Fellows have published their work in leading presses and journals and hold positions at prestigious universities and cultural institutions in the United States, Europe and Israel.
Fellows work on their individual projects, while attending weekly meetings. They present the results of their research through an informal seminar, and submit a final report upon completion of their assignment.
2015 – 2016 Fellows at the Center for Jewish History
Ayelet Brinn
Morris & Alma Schapiro Fellowship
Doctoral Candidate, University of Pennsylvania
“The American Yiddish Press and the Reconstruction of Jewish Gender, 1897 – 1935”
Brinn will use her new position to conduct original research around the ways that gender were discussed and presented in the American Yiddish Press from 1897 to 1935.
Brinn’s research will illuminate the ways in which popular Yiddish-language newspapers catered to female audiences and which topics were seen as “women’s issues.” Her research explores how changes in journalistic trends regarding gender in the Yiddish press reflected similar patterns in American mainstream publications.
Sonia Gollance
Dr. Sophie Bookhalter Fellowship in Jewish Culture
Doctoral Candidate, University of Pennsylvania
“Harmonious Instability: (Mixed) Dancing and Partner Choice in German-Jewish and Yiddish Literature.”
Gollance will use her new position to conduct original research around Jewish mixed-sex dancing in German and Yiddish literature.
Gollance’s research on literary portrayals of dance will break new ground in the study of spaces where social mixing occurs by exploring the way in which the trope of dance conveys concerns with Jewish tradition, authenticity and gender roles.