Jennifer Thompson, Ph.D., Maurice Amado Professor of Applied Jewish Ethics and Civic Engagement, Director of Jewish Studies Program
Jennifer Thompson, Ph.D., Director, Jewish Studies Program
Professor of Jewish Studies
Maurice Amado Professor of Applied Jewish Ethics and Civic Engagement
Melissa Weininger, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies
Melissa Weininger, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies
Education
Ph.D., Jewish Studies, The University of Chicago, 2010
B.A., English Language and Literature and Women’s Studies, Harvard University, 1995
Jeffrey Auerbach, Ph.D., Professor of History
Jeffrey Auerbach, Ph.D., Professor
- History
- 818.677.3561
- jeffrey.auerbach@csun.edu
- Jeffrey Auerbach's webpage
Shira Brown, M.A., Lecturer in Gender and Women's Studies
Shira Brown, M.A., Lecturer
- Biography
Shira Brown graduated from California State University, Northridge, with a B.A. in Women’s Studies and English in 2002. Ms. Brown also holds an M.A. in Applied Women’s Studies, with a concentration in Community Building & Education, from Claremont Graduate University, earned in 2004. Immediately after earning her MA, she began working at the Institute for Multicultural Counseling & Education Services, Inc. (IMCES), where she became a Certified Domestic Violence Advocate and Program Coordinator for a CalWorks Domestic Violence program working one-on-one with survivors of domestic violence to provide access to community resources.
Since August 2011, she has served as the Staff Director for CSUN's Women's Research and Resource Center. She has been teaching in the CSUN Gender and Women’s Studies department since Spring 2006.
Dorothy Clark, Ph.D., Professor of English
Dorothy Clark, Ph.D., Professor
- English Department
Dr. Dorothy Clark is a professor of English. She earned both her undergraduate and doctoral degrees at UCLA and received an M.A. in English and a secondary English Credential from CSUN. Dr. Clark has been teaching as full-time faculty at CSUN since 2001.
Teaching
Her interests and courses include Children’s Literature, Yeats, interdisciplinary courses on good and evil, and the Holocaust with a focus on issues of memory and representation. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Dr. Clark has been a board member of the 1939 Society (the largest Holocaust survivor organization in the U.S.) for over a decade. She helped to initiate the Jewish Studies Program’s trips to Poland, leading the first trip in conjunction with Loyola Marymount University in 2010.
Prof. Clark has taught classes on the Holocaust and American Culture and the Rhetoric of Memory, focusing on the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide.
Current Research Interests:
Holocaust education and preserving an “authenticity of memory”; children’s literature and new media; representations of good and evil in popular culture.
Recent Selected Publications:
- Co-editor, Frontiers in American Children’s Literature. Accepted for publication by Cambridge Scholars Press, January 2014.
- "Healing Shattered Worlds: The Unforeseen Effects of a Second Generation Daughter's Return to Her Parents' Polish Village." Tikkun Magazine, Tikkun Daily, December 2011.
- “Hyperread: Repurposing Children’s Literature and Digital Storytelling.” Postmodern Reinterpretations of Fairy Tales. How Applying New Methods Generates New Meanings. Ed. Anna Kérchy. The Edwin Mellen Press, 2011.
- “Being’s Wound: Evil and Explanation in The Killer Inside Me,” in the Enigma of Good and Evil: The Moral Sentiment in Literature, edited by A. Tymieniecka, Analecta Husserliana Book Series 85, The Netherlands: Springer Publications, December 2005.
Memberships:
- Member of the Editorial Board (Polish Peer Reviewed Journal): A/R/T Journal: Analyses/Rereading/Theories: A Journal Devoted to Literature, Film and Theatre
- Modern Language Association (MLA)
- Children’s Literature Association (ChLA)
- American Literature Association (ALA)
- Children’s Literature Society, American Literature Association
Daniela Gerson, Associate Professor of Journalism
Daniela Gerson, Associate Professor of Journalism
Elaine Goodfriend, Ph.D., Lecturer in Jewish Studies, Religious Studies, and History
Elaine Goodfriend, Ph.D., Lecturer
- Religious Studies, Jewish Studies, History
Audrey Thacker, Ph.D., Lecturer in English
Audrey Thacker, Ph.D., Lecturer
- Ph.D, English, Claremont Graduate University, 2005
- Dissertation: My Story, Your Story, Our Story--Whose Story? "Storying" the Holocaust and Confronting Questions of Narrative Authority and Authenticity through Art Spiegelman's MAUS: A Survivor's Tale
- M.A., English, California State University, Northridge, 1992
- Thesis: Jewish Dreams/American Dreams: Ethnic Absence and Presence in Four Jewish American Texts
- B.A., English, University of California, Berkeley, 1986
- Thesis: Humor and Emily Dickinson: An Unexpected Acquaintance
Teaching
“Pop Goes the Professor: Brands, Stands and Reprimands in the Teaching of Jewish American Texts,” presented at the conference of the Western Jewish Studies Association (WJSA), Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA, March 2017
Kassandra Wilsey, M.A., Lecturer in Jewish Studies and Recreation and Tourism Management
Kassandra Wilsey, M.A.
- Recreation and Tourism Management, Jewish Studies
As a part-time instructor in both the Recreation and Tourism Management Department and the Jewish Studies Interdisciplinary Program, Ms. Wilsey teaches outdoor education and environmental sustainability. She also teaches Environmental Judaism which is an examination of teachings on the natural environment found in Jewish literature and oral teachings, with an emphasis on values and practices related to respect for natural life and environmental conservation. It is her goal to bridge the growing gap between students and their natural environment with hopes of a more sustainable future.