Graduate Student Network
The Jewish Studies Graduate Student Network is an informal group of graduate students interested in the interdisciplinary field of Jewish Studies. Run out of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies and mentored by two faculty advisers, the group brings together graduate students from a wide variety of fields on campus who maintain interests in Jewish Studies. The group meets on a regular basis throughout the year for works-in-progress sessions, luncheon seminars with guest speakers, and other events where graduate students have the chance to interact with students and faculty involved with the field of Jewish Studies. The only requirements for participating are an interest in Jewish Studies and current enrollment as a graduate student. To get on the mailing list for forthcoming events or to learn more, email Jonathan M. Hess, Director, Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, at jmhess@email.unc.edu.Graduate Students
Waitman Beorn ∙ Carrie Duncan ∙ Joseph Gindi
Shannon Wong Lerner ∙ Patrick Tobin ∙ Steve Werlin
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Waitman Beorn is a graduate student in the History Department, where he studies Nazi Germany and the Holocaust with Dr. Christopher Browning. Beorn received his BS from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 2000 and his MA from Carolina in 2007. His dissertation focuses the factors leading to the participation (and non-participation) by German soldiers in carrying out Nazi genocidal policy in the occupied Soviet Union. Some of these factors include belief in racist ideology, situational and environmental factors, leadership, and small unit dynamics. More generally, Beorn is interested in the behavior of perpetrators and bystanders in the Holocaust. In addition to his graduate studies and teaching, Beorn has worked with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in their professional and military ethical development outreach programs.
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Carrie Duncan is a graduate student in the Department of Religious Studies, studying the archaeology of early Judaism and Christianity. She received her B.A. in archaeology from Tufts University and M.A. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. She has worked on archaeological excavations in Greece, Italy, and Israel, most recently at the Yotvata Archaeological Project in the Arava Valley directed by UNC professor Jodi Magness. Carrie’s dissertation will focus on the archaeological evidence for the position of women in the synagogues and churches of late antiquity.
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Joseph Gindi is student in the Religion and Culture track of the Religious Studies Department at UNC-CH. His work focuses on the production of religious and political meaning of contemporary American Jews. Joseph has studied at the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem and has a masters degree in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University and a bachelors degree in Anthropology from Wesleyan University.
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Shannon Wong Lerner began her T’shuva by emulating the greats of Yiddish theatre, singers and comedians such as Fanny Brice and Molly Picon. After leaving New Orleans as a street performer, she produced a series of one-woman shows that interpreted vaudeville to include her experiences as a Chinese Jewish woman. Shannon recently completed her MS from Michigan Technological University’s Rhetoric and Technical Communication Department. Her thesis is titled, Martin Buber and Luce Irigaray: Liminality and Historical Religious/Spiritual Moments. Shannon’s thesis focuses on pivotal moments within biblical allegory, such as the Covenant and the Annunciation as performance and communication events. She started in the fall of 2008 as a Ph.D. candidate in Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her current scholarly interests include Jewish studies, religion and ethics, continental philosophy, feminist theory, ethnic studies, and performance studies.
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Patrick Tobin graduated in 2006 from Kalamazoo College with a BA in Modern History. He enrolled in the Ph.D. History program at the UNC-Chapel Hill in the fall 2007, where he studies the Holocaust and Holocaust memory in Germany. His current project examines West German trials for crimes of the Holocaust, with a focus on how these trials informed Germans' understandings of their own past.
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Steve Werlin
Steve Werlin is a graduate student in the Department of Religious Studies where he studies the archaeology of Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Palestine, as well as ancient Judaism. He has worked under the direction of Dr. Jodi Magness since 1999, first as an undergraduate at Tufts University, and then as a doctoral candidate at UNC. His research interests include Ancient Synagogue Art and Architecture, Hasmonean and Herodian Architecture and History, and Jewish Religious Practices in the Classical and Near Eastern world.
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