About
Jodi Eichler-Levine is an associate professor of
Religion Studies and serves as the Berman Professor of Jewish Civilization at Lehigh University and Director of American Studies. Her work is located at the intersection of Jewish studies, religion in North America, literature, material culture, and gender studies. She holds a Ph.D. in Religion from
Columbia University and a B.A. in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from
Brandeis University. Before coming to Lehigh, she spent eight years as a professor of Religious Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies at the
University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh.
Professor Eichler-Levine is the author of
Suffer the Little Children: Uses of the Past in Jewish and African American Children’s Literature (
NYU Press, 2013), which was reissued in paperback in 2015. In this work, she analyzes what is at stake in portraying religious history for young people, particularly when the histories in question are traumatic ones. Her publications have also appeared in American Quarterly, Shofar, and other journals. Additionally, she has written for
Religion Dispatches,
Tikkun,
Religion in American History (where her work was also
featured), and the Christian Century
Then and Now blog.
As an affiliate of the
Berman Center for Jewish Studies and a member of the
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies core faculty, Dr. Eichler-Levine’s teaching encompasses a wide range of topics, including Jewish comics and graphic novels, religion and food; religious children’s literature; modern Jews; Jews, gender and sexuality; and religion, sci-fi, and fantasy. On the national level, has previously served as co-chair of co-chair of the
Association for Jewish Studies Women’s Caucus and of the American Academy of Religion’s
Religion, Memory, History Group.
Future projects include a book length work on Jewish women, material culture, politics, and performance, currently titled
Crafting Judaism: American Jewish Women and Creativity. Professor Eichler-Levine also continues to write on Jewish children’s literature and on race, ethnicity, and religion in the United States.
When she is not wearing her professional hats, Professor Eichler-Levine enjoys knitting, sci-fi and fantasy series (all-time favorite: Buffy the Vampire Slayer), the Boston Red Sox, and the Green Bay Packers. She lives in the Lehigh Valley with her husband and daughter.
Education
Ph.D. Columbia University, Religion
M.A. Columbia University, Religion
B.A. Brandeis University, Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, summa cum laude Work Shared in CORE
Book chapters
Syllabi
Other Publications
Suffer the Little Children: Uses of the Past in Jewish and African American Children’s Literature
(New York: New York University Press, April 2013).
(Paperback: New York University Press, April 2015)
Reviewed in: American Literary History Advance, American Jewish History, Catholic Library
World, Children’s Literature, Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, Choice, The Lion and
The Unicorn.
“Jews, Race, Religion,” in Paul Harvey and Kathryn Gin Lum, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Religion
and Race in American History (New York: Oxford University Press). (forthcoming, 2018)
“Maurice Sendak’s Jewish Mother(s),” in Jane Kanarek, Marjorie Lehman, and Simon Bronner, eds.,
Mothers in the Jewish Cultural Imagination (Oxford, UK: Littman Library of
Jewish Civilization, 2017).
“Golems and Goblins: The Monstrous in Jewish Children’s Literature,” in Stephen Parker,
Susan Ridgely, and Ann Strhan, eds. The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion and Childhood.
(London: Bloomsbury, 2017)
“Minyan-less in Oshkosh: Or, How the JWA Brought Yiddishkeit to Northeast Wisconsin,”
in Joyce Antler, ed., Why Jewish Women’s History Matters: An Archive of Stories in Honor of
Gail Reimer (Boston: Jewish Women’s Archive, 2014).
“Imagining Mary Magdalene: The Discourse of Hidden Wisdom in American Popular Culture.”
Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds (April 2011).
“The Curious Conflation of Hanukkah and the Holocaust in Jewish Children’s Literature.” Shofar: An
Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies (Winter 2010), 92-115.
“‘As Americans Against Genocide’: The Crisis in Darfur and Interreligious Political Activism,” with
Rosemary R. Hicks. American Quarterly 56:3 (September 2007), 711-735. Projects
Crafting Judaism: American Jewish Women and Creativity (book project, in progress) Upcoming Talks and Conferences
” ‘I Made it a Jewish Quilt’: Crafting Judaism, Telling Stories.” Association for Jewish Studies Annual Meeting, December 18, 2017. 3-4:30 pm. Memberships
American Academy of Religion
Modern Language Association
Association for Jewish Studies
Association for the Sociology of Religion
