Each year, the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan invites scholars to Ann Arbor to pursue research projects on a general theme. For 2013-14, the group—led by University of Pennsylvania historian Beth S. Wenger—will gather around the theme of “New Perspectives on Gender & Jewish Life.”

“This year, the Frankel Institute plans to extend questions stimulated by gender to traditional aspects of Jewish studies, such as rabbinics, politics, literature, and history as well as to newer areas of Jewish studies, such as diaspora, culture, performance, and migration studies,” explains Deborah Dash Moore, director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies. “Not only women but also men and masculinity, sexuality and the sexual politics of Jewish identity are topics for study. We see this year as a chance to build on existing scholarship as well as to move research on Jews and gender into relatively unexplored areas, such as the senses, emotions, and new media, including the arts.”


The 2013-2014 Frankel Institute fellows:

Christine Achinger, University of Warwick       
Constellations of Alterity: Conceptions of Femininity and Jewishness in Modern German and Austrian Culture

Benjamin Baader, University of Manitoba         
Creating Self and Creating Community: Gender, Class, and Jewish Difference in German Jewish Family Letters and Diaries, 1813-1871

Rivka Bliboim, Hebrew University (Fall Semester)
Languauge and Gender: The Case of the "Frecha"

Susan Dessel, Independent Artist (Fall Semester)         
Words Heard in a Black Maria

Galit Hasan-Rokem, Hebrew University (Fall Semester)           
Women and Everyday Life: Folk-Literary and Ethnographic Aspects of Midrash Leviticus Rabbah

Verena Kasper-Marienberg, University of Graz
Seeking Imperial Justice: Accounts of Conflict in the 18th Century Frankfurt Judengasse

Dorothy Kim, Vassar College  
Medieval Women and English Exoticism

Rachel  Kranson, University of Pittsburgh         
Jewish Voices, Women's Choices: Jewish Involvement in American Abortion Debates, 1967-2000

Marjorie Lehman, Jewish Theological Seminary (Winter Semester)       
The Gendered Rhetoric of Tractate Yoma

Evyatar Marienberg, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (Winter Semester)
How Should Jews Do it? The (Hi)story of Traditional Jewish Sex Instruction

Anita Norich, University of Michigan
Kadya Molodovsky: Fact and Fiction

Shachar Pinsker, University of Michigan           
Urban Cafes, Gender and Modern Jewish Culture

Max Strassfeld, Stanford University     
Classically Queer: Eunuchs and Androgynes in Rabbinic Literature

Beth S. Wenger, University of Pennsylvania      
Making American Jewish Men

The Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies: Expressing a deep commitment to Jewish learning, the Samuel and Jean Frankel Jewish Heritage Foundation provided a $20 million endowment in 2005 to establish the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. On November 9, 2005, the University celebrated the official inauguration of the Institute and, soon after, it announced its first theme year and call for fellowship applications. For more information, visit www.lsa.umich.edu/judaic/.