Emily Katz

Contact Information:

Greenlaw Hall 229
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3520
katzem@unc.edu

Education:

Ph.D., modern Jewish studies, Jewish Theological Seminary, 2008
M.A., Jewish art and visual culture, Jewish Theological Seminary, 2001
B.A., Religious Studies, Wesleyan University, 1997

Research Interests and Honors:

I work at the intersection of academic Jewish-American studies and creative writing. My book Bringing Zion Home: Israel in American Jewish Culture, 1948-1967, was published by the State University of New York Press in 2015 and explores the cultural practices through which many Jewish Americans came to feel that they “knew” Israel, in affective terms, in the context of Cold War liberalism. I am currently working on a group biography that traces the spiritual and worldly ambitions of the first American-born generation of the German-Jewish Reichert family (forbears of mine). I’m particularly interested in excavating the voices of the three women in this familial cohort, whose stories have been overshadowed by the public personas of their two brothers, prominent Reform rabbis in the middle decades of the twentieth century. In 2022-2023, I was awarded a Fellowship at the American Jewish Archives (Cincinnati) to begin research on this project.

My fiction writing ventures among a number of themes: the female body, the urban South, Jews, past and present. My short story “Little Hen” appeared in the anthology Frankly Feminist: Short Stories by Jewish Women from Lilith Magazine (Brandeis University Press, 2022); other fiction of mine has been published in such literary venues as North Carolina Literary Review, Salamander, and Meridian, as well as being designated as finalists for several awards. A full list of my fiction publications can be found at emilyalicekatz.com.

Teaching:

AMST 251/JWST 251: The Jewish American Experience
AMST 289/JWST 289: Jewish American Literature and Culture