CV

Teaching Experience

Postdoctoral Research Associate, the iSchool at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2023-2025)

• Book project: American Haredi children’s and teens’ historical fiction
• Libraries, Information, and Society (as co-teacher)
• Fantasy Literature and Media for Youth

Visiting Lecturer in Literature, University of Pittsburgh (2022 – 2023)

• Imagining Social Justice
• Science Fiction
• Exiles, Nomads, and Migrants
• Children and Culture Recitations

Homeschool & Tutor (2018 – 2022)

Literature, essay-writing, creative writing: middle-school, high-school, and post-high-school students.
Strengths: working with neurodivergent students (ADHD, autism, etc.) and Haredi yeshiva students.

Lehman College, CUNY (2014 – 2022)

ENG 111: English Composition I (3 sections)
ENG 121: English Composition II (7 sections)
(Composition Course Themes: Fairy Tales, Language, Storytelling)
ENG 223: English Literature (3 sections)
ENG 300: Introduction to Literary Studies
ENG 301: British Literature: Origins to Early Modern (4 sections)
ENG 305: History of the English Language
ENG 335: Critical Approaches to Children’s Literature (2 sections)
ENG 336: Critical Approaches to Adolescent Literature (2 sections)

College of Staten Island, CUNY (Fall 2018)

ENG 111: Introduction to College Writing (2 sections)

City College of New York, CUNY (Fall 2017)

ENG 251: Historical Survey of British Literature I

Queens College, CUNY (2015-2016)

HTH 101 & 102: Freshman Humanities Colloquium

Bais Yaakov of Boro Park (2007-2009)

Grade Eight English Language Arts

Other Experience

The Literary Encyclopedia (2022 – present)

Editor, Children’s Literature Group

University of Pittsburgh Writing Institute (2022 – 2023)

Graduate Student Workshop Developer and Leader: Constructing a Sample Syllabus and Teaching Philosophy for Job Applications

City Theater Company, Pittsburgh (2022)

Consultant on Orthodox Judaism and leaving Orthodox Judaism for The Wanderers (Anna Ziegler, directed by Collette Robert)

Yiddish Sexology, Dr. Zohar Weiman-Kelman (2020-2022)

Digital Content and Website Designer

The Bais Yaakov Project, Dr. Naomi Seidman (2018-2020)

Digital Content and Website Designer

The Graduate Center, CUNY (2015-2020)

Student Employee, Admissions Office

Hostos Community College, CUNY (2017-2019)

Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Fellow

City College of New York, CUNY (2010-2014)

Writing Tutor / Consultant

Education

PhD in English
(Certificate in Medieval Studies)
2021

The CUNY Graduate Center
Dissertation: Reading the World: American Haredi Children’s Literature, 1980-2000.
Supervisor: Carrie Hintz
Committee Members: Steven Kruger, Mark McBeth

BA English Literature
2012

City College of New York, CUNY
summa cum laude
Classical Studies Minor

Service

• Membership Committee, Children’s Literature Association 2023-2026
• Reviewer, AJL News and Reviews, Middle Grade and Young Adult Books 2022-present
• Literature Awards Committee, English Department, University of Pittsburgh 2022 – 2023
• Representative Outreach Committee, English Students Association, CUNY GC 2020-2021
• Advisory Committee, Medieval Studies Certificate Program, CUNY GC 2018-2020
• Co-chair, Pearl Kibre Medieval Studies, CUNY GC 2018-2019
• Member of Working Group for Middle States Review, CUNY GC 2018-2019
• Event Organizer, “Whan that Aprille Day 2018,” CUNY GC 2018
• Advisory Board, GC Advocate, CUNY GC 2017-2018
• Executive Committee, English Program, CUNY GC 2015-2017
• Co-chair of ESA (English Student Association), CUNY GC 2015-2016
• Advisory Committee, Medieval Studies Certificate program, CUNY GC 2015-2016
• Professionalization Committee, ESA, CUNY GC 2014-2015

Presentations

“”It could have been the twelfth, the fifteenth or even the eighteenth century’: The Haredi Chronotope and Haredi Children’s Historical Fiction.” Association of Jewish Studies 55th Annual Conference. 17-19 December 2023. San Francisco, California.

“Rhetorics of Tznius in 20th- and 21st-Century American Bais Yaakov Schools.” Bais Yaakov in Historical and Transnational Perspective. 20-21 March 2023. University of Toronto.

“Avner Gold’s Ruach Ami Series: A Case Study of Haredi Historical Fiction.” Historical Fiction Research Conference. 17-19 February 2023. Virtual event.

“Our World: Shaping Geographies in an Orthodox Jewish Children’s Magazine.” 27 October 2022. University of Pittsburgh, PA.

“Our World: Boundaries and Geographies in the Haredi Children’s Olomeinu Magazine, 1945-2011.” City in a Forest. 2-4 June 2022. The Children’s Literature Association, Atlanta, GA.

“Book Talk: Artifacts of Orthodox Jewish Childhoods.” 1 April 2022. Virtual book talk for Artifacts of Orthodox Childhoods hosted by the English Program of the CUNY Graduate Center, New York.

“A Nation Who Dwells Alone: Haredi Children’s Historical Fiction’s Rhetoric of Separatism.” PAMLA. 11-14 November 2021. Las Vegas, NV and Virtual.

“Growing Up Orthodox.” 6 October 2021. Virtual book talk for Artifacts of Orthodox Childhoods hosted by the Jewish Study Center, Washington, D.C.

“Haredi Children’s Literature in the Late Twentieth Century.” 10 August 2021. Virtual lecture hosted by the Association of Jewish Libraries.

“Filling in Archival Gaps: England’s 1290 Expulsion of the Jews in a Haredi Children’s Novel.” Experiencing Medievalism: Getting Medieval in a Changing World. 7 May 2021. The Pearl Kibre Medieval Study, CUNY Graduate Center.

“Klal Yisrael’s Guarantee: Children as the Key to Messianic redemption in Haredi Musical and Textual Culture.” The End Times: Approaches to the Apocalypse. 12 March 2021. English Students Association, The Graduate Center, CUNY.

“From Scandal to Emotional Vulnerability: The Trajectory of OTD Memoirs and Fiction.” On the Margins of Contemporary Jewish Orthodoxies. 29 October 2020. Virtual event hosted by Baruch College, CUNY.

“Building Digital Projects: Considering Audience and Purpose.” Working Group at the Center for Jewish History. 17 April 2020. Virtual event hosted by the CJH in New York.

“Digital Archive and Textual Analysis for American Haredi Children’s Literature.” Children’s Literature and Digital Humanities. 22-23 October 2020. Virtual event hosted by The University of Antwerp, Belgium.

“Sharing Spaces, Shaping Identities: American Haredi Children’s Literature.” NeMLA. 6 March 2020. Boston, MA.

“The School of Hard Knocks: The Education of the Hero in Medieval Romances.” International Medieval Congress. 1-4 July 2019. Leeds, UK.

“Beetle/Alyce of The Midwife’s Apprentice: A Feminist Version of Medieval Romances’ Noble Male Heroes.” The International Congress of Medieval Studies. 9-12 May 2019. Kalamazoo, MI.

“Textual and Emotional Complexities for a Jewish Medievalist.” The International Congress of Medieval Studies. 9-12 May 2019. Kalamazoo, MI.

“Grief and Glory: Hebrew Crusade Chronicles and Piyyutim as Deterrents for Adolescent Conversion.” International Medieval Congress. 3-6 July 2017. Leeds, UK.

“Fighting the Past: Medieval Dragons in Children’s and YA Literature.” Pre-Modernisms. October 2016. The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York.

“‘His varying childness’: Children, Generation, and Salvation in The Winter’s Tale.” Shakespeare Lives: A Celebration of 400 Triumphant Years. 19 April 2016. City College of New York, CUNY.

“Hamelech Artus: Concepts of Childhood in a Medieval Hebrew-Italian Arthurian Romance.” MLA. 7-10 January 2016. Austin, Texas.

“Medieval Childhood and Adolescence in the Romances of Horn and Havelok.” Parenthood and Childhood in the Middle Ages. 8-9 October 2015. Edinburgh, UK.

“‘Minstrels get about and so do students’: The Role of Emotional Attachment and Historical Accuracy in the Impact of Young Adult Fiction.” The International Congress of Medieval Studies. 14-17 May 2014. Kalamazoo, Michigan.

“Enmity and Amity: The Ambivalent Nature of Medieval Jewish-Christian Religious Borrowings.” Persecution, Punishment, and Purgatory in the Long Middle Ages. 7 November 2014. The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York.

“Enmity and Amity: Parsing Late Medieval Inter-Religious Ideologies Inside and Outside the Synagogue.” ‘Profitable and Spedful to Use’: Medieval and Early Modern Prayer. 19 September 2014. Cardiff University, Wales, UK.

Publications

The Development of American Haredi Children’s Literature. Forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.

“Jewish American Children’s Literature.” Oxford Bibliographies Online. Forthcoming.

Review of Wild Visionary: Maurice Sendak in Queer Jewish Context by Golan Moskowitz. Children’s Literature 51 (2023): 224-228.

Review of Thinking Queerly: Medievalism, Wizardry, and Neurodiversity in Young Adult Texts by Jes Battis. International Research Society for Children’s Literature, 15.3 (2022): 353-355. DOI: 10.3366/ircl.2022.0472.

Artifacts of Orthodox Jewish Childhoods: Personal and Critical Essays. Ben-Yehuda Press, April 2022.

Review of Adaptation in Young Adult Novels: Critically Engaging Past and Present by Dana E. Lawrence and Amy L. Montz. The International Journal of Young Adult Literature, 2.1 (2021): 1–5. DOI: http://doi.org/10.24877/IJYAL.58.

Review of Picture-books In the Classroom: Perspectives on Life Skills, Sustainable Development and Democracy Citizenship by Hilde Tørnby. International Research Society for Children’s Literature 14.3 (2021): 357-359.

Review of Adaptation in Young Adult Novels: Critically Engaging Past and Present by Dana E. Lawrence and Amy L. Montz. The International Journal for Young Adult Literature 2.1 (2021): 1–5. DOI: http://doi.org/10.24877/IJYAL.58.

“Self-Evident Morals? Affective Manipulation as Social Critique in Henryson’s Fables.” Words that Tear the Flesh: Sarcasm and Snark in Medieval Literature and Cultures. Baragona, Alan and Elizabeth Rambo, eds. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018. 185-203.

Review of Neighboring Faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in the Middle Ages and Today, by David Nirenberg. Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures, 42.2 (2016): 274-278.

Panels / Conferences Organized

“Sharing Spaces in Children’s and Young Adult Literature.” NeMLA. 5-8 March 2020. Boston, MA.

“Representation and Space in/of Children’s Literature.” English Department, CUNY Graduate Center, 28 February 2020.

“Girls to Women, Boys to Men: Gender in Medieval Education and Socialization.”  The International Congress of Medieval Studies. 9-12 May 2019. Kalamazoo, MI.

Crossing Boundaries: Towards an Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies. 3 May 2019. The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York.

Awards

Gilboa Grant
Jewish Studies Program,
University of Pittsburgh
2022

Lynn Kadison Dissertation Year Fellowship
English Dept, CUNY GC
2019-2020

Alfred Kazin Prize for Best Dissertation in American Literature and Culture
English Dept, CUNY GC
2021

Languages

Reading Proficiency:

• Latin
• Old English
• Middle English
• Anglo-Norman / Old French

Reading and Speaking Proficiency:

• French (intermediate)
• Yiddish (intermediate)
• Hebrew (intermediate)
• German (beginning)