University of North Texas Jewish Studies Program

Faculty of the Jewish Studies Program
Dr. Deborah Armintor Dr. Guy Chet Rabbi Geoffrey Dennis Dr. James Duban Dr. Henry Eaton Dr. Christopher Fuhrmann Dr. Timothy Jackson Dr. Adrian R. Lewis		Dr. Alfred C. Mierzejewski Dr. Diane Plotkin Dr. Eunice Pollack Ruth Precker Rabbi Jonathan Schick Dr. Martin Yaffe
Staff of the Jewish Studies Program
Richard M. Golden

	Dr. Deborah Needleman Armintor
			Language Bldg, Room 408E Tel: (940) 369 - 8948 Fax: (940) 565 - 4355 Email: dna@unt.edu
	Dr. Armintor received a B.A. from Brandeis University in 1995 and her Ph.D. from Rice University, 2002. She specializes in eighteenth-century British literature and culture. Dr. Armintor has articles appearing in The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation (forthcoming) and Literature and Psychology, and is editor of Eighteenth-Century British Erotica II, volume 2 (forthcoming, Pickering & Chatto). Dr. Armintor also serves as Field Editor of Bibliographic and Textual Studies for The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography, and is working on a book about the proliferation of diminutive men in British literature of the 1700’s (tentatively titled Little Men: Stature and Masculinity in Eighteenth-Century British Literature). back to top
	Dr. Guy Chet
			Curriculum Vitae Wooten Hall, Room 235 Tel: (940) 369-8927 Fax: (972) 369-8838 Email: guychet@unt.edu
	Guy Chet received his bachelor's degree in history at Haifa University, Israel, and his MA and PhD in history at Yale University, working under the direction of Dr. John Demos. Guy teaches early American history and military history at the University of North Texas. His book, Conquering the American Wilderness: The Triumph of European Warfare in the Colonial Northeast (published in 2003 by University of Massachusetts Press) is an analysis of English and American responses to the challenges of wilderness warfare in colonial North-America. Guy is primarily interested in early-modern military history, although his first love was and still is Roman history. back to top

	Rabbi Geoffrey Dennis
			Curriculum Vitae Congregation Kol Ami 1887 Timber Creek Rd Flower Mound, TX 75028-1145 Tel: (972) 539 -1938 Fax: (972) 874 -1229 Email: RaGWad@aol.com Website: http://www.phil.unt.edu/faculty/dennis.htm
	Geoffrey W. Dennis is Rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in Flower Mound, TX. He has been an adjunct instructor of religious studies at Indiana University.-Purdue University Indianapolis and at the University of Indianapolis. He received his MHL and Ordination from Hebrew Union College -Jewish Institute of Religion, where his thesis, "Shir Ha-Shirim Rabbah: A Study in Figure and Narrative," received the Harry Slominsky Prize in Midrash. His articles have appeared in Journal of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Parabola: A Magazine of Myth and Tradition, Sh'ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility and The Cincinnati Judaica Review. His first book, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism, is being released January, 2007. Rabbi Dennis is very interested in the educational potential of the Internet. He is a major contributor to the online Encyclopedia Mythica (www.pantheon.org) and has his own website devoted to the study of Jewish esoteric traditions (www.ejmmm2007.blotspot.com). back to top
	Dr. James Duban
			Kendall Hall, Room 162 Tel: (940) 565-2820 Fax: (940) 565 4355 Email: jduban@unt.edu
	Dr. James Duban is Professor of English and Director of the UNT Office for Nationally Competitive Scholarships. Dr. Duban is the author of Melville's Major Fiction: Politics, Theology, and Imagination (1983), and The Nature of True Virtue: Theology, Psychology, and Politics in the Writings of Henry James, Sr., Henry James, Jr., and William James (2001). Dr. Duban's articles on American intellectual and literary history have appeared in Studies in American Jewish Literature, American Literature, Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Harvard Theological Review, The Harvard Library Bulletin, and Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, among others. back to top
	Dr. Henry Eaton
			Wooten Hall, Room 263 Tel: (940) 565-3392 Fax: (940) 369-8838 Email: heaton@unt.edu Website: http://www.hist.unt.edu/faculty/eaton/eaton.htm
	Henry Eaton: University of Illinois history Ph.D. (1970); carried out holocaust research in Romania, at Yad Vashem, and U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum library and archives. He has published articles on pogrom of 1941 in Iasi, Romania; attended seminars and conferences sponsored by the Holocaust Educational Foundation; has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on the Holocaust and history of anti-Semitism. back to top
	Dr. Christopher Fuhrmann
			Wooten Hall , Room 264 Tel: (940) 565-4527 Fax: (940) 369-8838 Email: cfuhrmann@unt.edu
	back to top
	Dr. Timothy Jackson
			Curriculum Vitae Music Building, Room 111 Tel: (940) 565-3748 Fax: (940) 565-2002 Email: tjackson@music.unt.edu Website: http://www.music.unt.edu/bio/jacksontim.shtml
	Timothy L. Jackson's interests center on nineteenth and twentieth century, and Schenkerian theory. Jackson wrote his dissertation on the music of Richard Strauss (Ph.D. in Music Theory, 1988, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York). His interests subsequently branched out from German music to encompass the Russian and Finnish traditions. He authored Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony (Pathetique) for the Cambridge Handbooks Series (1999), and co-edited Bruckner Studies (Cambridge, 1997), Sibelius Studies (Cambridge, 1999), and Perspectives on Anton Bruckner (Ashgate, 2001). With Paul Hawkshaw (Yale), he wrote the composer article on Bruckner for the Revised New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001). Currently, he is editing a volume of Strauss Studies for Cambridge. Jackson has published on many topics, including theories of form and large-scale tonal structure, in The Journal of Music Theory, Music Analysis, In Theory Only, and Theory and Practice. His research on twentieth-century composers such as Schoenberg and Shostakovich has been published in an array of journals including 19th-century Music, The Musical Quarterly, Music and Letters, Journal of Musicological Research, and the International Journal of Musicology, and also books published by Cambridge, Duke, and Princeton University Presses. In 1994-95, Jackson was J. William Fulbright Teaching and Research Professor at the Department of Musicology, University of Nurnberg-Erlangen, Germany, and in 1996-97, he held an NEH Award to College Professors. Jackson has been a guest professor at Oxford University, the Sibelius Academy, and the University of Helsinki. Jackson is married to Deborah Mariashe Estrin and has one daughter, Serena. back to top
	Dr. Adrian R. Lewis
	Curriculum Vitae Wooten Hall, Room 264 Tel: (940) 565-2288 Fax: (940) 369-8838 Email: alewis@unt.edu
	back to top
	Dr. Alfred C. Mierzejewski
			Curriculum Vitae Wooten Hall Tel: (940) 565-2288 Fax: (940) 369-8838 Email: ACMierzeje@aol.com
	Alfred C. Mierzejewski is associate professor of history in the history department at the University of North Texas. He received a BA in history of Southeastern Massachusetts University and MA and Ph.D. degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At UNT, he teaches courses in modern German history. He has published The Collapse of the German War Economy: Allied Air Power and the German National Railway, 1944-1945 (University of North Carolina Press, 1988), The Most Valuable Asset of the Reich. A History of the German National Railway, 2 vols (University of North Carolina Press, 1999, 2000) and numerous articles concerning the German economy in the twentieth century. He has also published "A Public Enterprise in the Service of Mass Murder: The Deutsche Reichsbahn and the Holocaust," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 15(Spring 2001): 33-46. He is currently completing a biography of Ludwig! Erhard. His research interests center around the development of markets and economic thought in modern Germany. back to top
	Dr. Diane Plotkin
			Curriculum Vitae Phone: (214) 739-2821 Fax: (214) 739-4331 Email: dmp10@swbell.net
	Diane Plotkin grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She earned a B.S. in nursing at Mt. Sinai Hospital School of Nursing, and then a B.A. in English at the University of Texas at Dallas (1978), an M.A. at the University of Texas at Dallas, and a Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Arlington in Humanities (1990), specializing in the Holocaust. Her book Sisters in Sorrow (1998) concerns prisoner nurses in the concentration camps. She has written several book chapters and presented papers at meetings through the U.S. and Europe. She has taught world literature and Holocaust studies at Brookhaven College for the last ten years and is thrilled to be teaching the Holocaust and film at UNT. back to top
	Dr. Eunice Pollack
			Curriculum Vitae Wooten Hall, Room 227 Tel: (940) 565-2489 Fax: (940) 369-8838 Email: EGPollack@aol.com
	Born in Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Pollack earned a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and an M.A. and Ph.D. (1999) in history from Columbia University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston in 2000-01. She has been a full-time lecturer in history and Jewish studies at the University of North Texas, 2001-2003. She was the originator of the American Historical Association's Resolution on Jews and Slavery (1995), a response to the Nation of Islam's libelous charges about the Jews and the slave trade. She has published an article, "The Childhood We Have Lost, 1900-1970," Journal of Social History (September 2002). She is co-editor of the forthcoming Encyclopedia of American History (ABC-CLIO). back to top
	Ruth Precker
			Curriculum Vitae Language Building, Room 203 Tel: (940) 565-2311 Fax: (940) 565-2581 Email: ruthprecker@sbcglobal.net or rprecker@unt.edu
	Ruth Precker, a native of Israel, has taught Hebrew in the Dallas area for more than 10 years. She heads the Adult Hebrew Institute at the Dallas Jewish Community Center, and has taught at the Southern Methodist University Center for Continuing Studies, Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, and other institutions in the area. She teaches and is helping to develop Chocolate Hebrew, an innovative, multi-sensory course to learn Hebrew quickly, which is now being offered in the Dallas area. Ms. Precker earned a Master of Arts degree in Land of Israel Studies - which encompasses archaeology, botany, Biblical studies and other disciplines - at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in geography from Tel Aviv University. back to top
	Rabbi Jonathan Schick
			Curriculum Vitae 5943 Willow Lane Dallas TX, 75230 Tel: (214) 587-3960 Fax: (972) 458-9076 Email: jds@goalproject.com
	Jonathan D. Schick is a dynamic lecturer, educational consultant, and Rabbi specializing in the field of Jewish Ethics and Philosophy. He is the founder and director of The GOAL Project, a Dallas consulting firm, and previously served as founding headmaster of two Jewish Prep schools; The Mesorah School in Dallas, and Boston's Beth Jacob School for Girls. Currently holding an appointment as adjunct professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of North Texas, Rabbi Schick has taught Judaic Studies courses in Jerusalem, New England, New York, and Texas since 1987. He is the author of Ethical Leadership, a monthly e-column that serves over 1,000 subscribers. Rabbi Schick earned his Master's degree in Educational Administration from Boston College, and holds Rabbinic Ordination from New York's Darkei Noam Rabbinical College. back to top
	Dr. Martin Yaffe
			Curriculum Vitae Environmental Sciences Bldg, Room 310N Tel: (940) 565-2266 Fax: (940) 565-4488 Email: yaffe@unt.edu or mdyaffe@attbi.com Website: http://www.phil.unt.edu/faculty/vmdy.html
	Martin D. Yaffe is Professor of Philosophy and Religion Studies at the University of North Texas. He holds a B.A. from University of Toronto and a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School. His research interests are in political philosophy and Jewish thought. He is author of Shylock and the Jewish Question (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), co-translator of Thomas Aquinas' Literal Exposition on the Book of Job (Scholars Press, 1989), and editor of Judaism and Environmental Ethics; A Reader (Lexington Books, 2001). He is currently completing a translation, with interpretive essay, of Benedict Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Political Treatise (1670), the philosophical founding-document of both modern biblical criticism and modern liberal democracy (Focus Books, forthcoming). back to top
	back to top
Staff of the Jewish Studies Program
	Dr. Richard M. Golden
			Curriculum Vitae Professor of History Department Director of Jewish Studies Program Wooten Hall, Room 239 Tel: (940) 369-8933 Fax: (469) 293-5433 Email: rmg@unt.edu
	back to top