The interdisciplinary faculty of Jewish Studies at UK come together from three separate colleges in the University: Arts and Sciences,  Fine Arts, and Engineering. They are leaders in their respective fields of philosophy, history, rhetoric, computer science, musicology, and they work on a variety of cross-disciplinary projects as varied as, but not limited to the following:

• Jewish diversity
• Black Jewish identity
• contemporary Yiddish language and culture
• history of Jewish music
• representations of Israel in Jewish and other graphic novels
• minority relations in Modern Europe
• Jewish-Christian relations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly through the experiences of judeoconversos, or converts from Judaism to Christianity and their descendants
• comparative memory of trauma in the Haitian revolution and the Holocaust 
• Jewish presence in North Africa

This year alone, two of our esteemed colleagues have been awarded prestigious fellowships to continue their cutting edge research: Sophie Roberts is currently in Washington, D.C. at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies where she is revising her manuscript-in-progress. Jeremy Popkin is currently a National Humanities Center Fellow in North Carolina where he is "researching how the historical period that gave birth to the American Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man also produced many forms of, what he called 'unfreedom,' which included an unprecedented expansion of the slave trade and the Reign of Terror."

Our Jewish Studies faculty not only blaze a trail of interdisciplinary approaches to Jewish culture and society,  they are also committed campus citizens. Many have led or are currently leading their Departments as chair or in other roles, and Karen Petrone is also spear-heading the College's focus on the Realm of Russia.

Interested in affiliating? The Jewish Studies Advisory Committee welcomes new members and would be delighted to review your proposal to teach a Jewish Studies course. For more information, please contact Interim Director, Jan Fernheimer.