FACULTY

Justin Cammy
Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies
Visiting Assistant Professor, UCLA (Fall 2009)

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Office: Seelye Hall 203 Hours: W 11:15-11:45, 2-2:30

Phone: 585–3639

Justin Cammy is a specialist in modern Jewish literature and Eastern European Jewish culture. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University (2003). In 2006 he was awarded the Sherrerd Prize for Distinguished Teaching at Smith. View Professor Cammy's c.v.

Professor Cammy's scholarly interests in the ways in which Jewish history, politics and culture intersect are reflected his course rotation which includes courses on Yiddish, Israeli, and American–Jewish literature, thematic courses on Holocaust literature and Jewish comedy, a history course on the Jews of Eastern Europe, and a broad introductory survey to Jewish civilization.

Professor Cammy's research currently focuses on Yung–Vilne, the last group of young, politically engaged Yiddish poets, writers, and artists in inter–war Poland. He is completing a manuscript on the literary and cultural history of this group, tentatively called "When Yiddish Was Young: Vilna's Last Generation and the Fate of Eastern European Jewry". His translation from the Yiddish and introduction to Hinde Bergner's memoir, On Long Winter Nights: Memoirs of a Jewish Family in a Galician Township, 1870–1900, was published in 2005. He is also the co–editor of Arguing the Modern Jewish Canon: Essays on Literature and Culture in Honor of Ruth R. Wisse (2008), which includes his introduction and annotated translation of one of the first examples of Yiddish literary criticism, Sholem Aleichem's The Judgment of Shomer (1888). He has been an associate editor of Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History since 2005.

As the study abroad advisor for Jewish studies, Professor Cammy is familiar with many academic opportunities for students in the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. He has visited Israel more than a dozen times, most recently for seven months as a visiting scholar at the Hebrew University. His research on Yiddish culture also frequently brings him to Eastern Europe, most recently as the faculty lecturer on a Smith alumnae tour to Warsaw and Krakow. He is on the academic advisory board of CET Jewish studies in Prague and has been a faculty member or lecturer at Yiddish summer programs at both the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst and Tel Aviv University.

In addition to his teaching and administrative responsibilities in Jewish studies, he is a member of the Program in Comparative Literature, the Program in Middle East Studies, and the Program in American Studies.

In his volunteer time, Cammy serves as President of the Board of Directors of Lander–Grinspoon Academy: The Solomon Schechter School of the Pioneer Valley.