Lois C. Dubin
Professor and Chair, Department of Religion
Past Director, Program in Jewish Studies
Pierce Hall 106
Office tel. (413) 585-3676; fax (413) 585-7611
Email: ldubin@smith.edu
Education and Teaching
Born and raised in Montreal, Canada, I earned my B.A. (1974) from McGill University with Honors in Philosophy and Political Theory. I received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University (1980 and 1988), specializing in post-Biblical Jewish History and Thought in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Prior to joining the Smith Religion Department in 1989, I taught modern Jewish history and thought at Yale University and Hebrew College, Boston.
Scholarly interests
Early modern and modern Jewish history and thought
Jewish history in Central and Western Europe,
especially Italy and Habsburg Monarchy
Jewish intellectual history
Jewish legal status, politics, and political theory
History of marriage and divorce
Jewish women's history, spirituality, and theology
Contemporary Judaism
Study of ritual and ritual innovation
Smith Courses
Intro to World Religions
Colloquium for Religion Majors: Approaches to the Study
of Religion
Contemporary Judaism: Renewal and Invention
Hebrew Religious Texts
Insiders/Outsiders I: Jews and Judaism in Modern
Europe, 1492 to 1791
Insiders/Outsiders II: Jews and Judaism in Modern Europe
and America, 19th -21st c.
Jews and Judaism in the Modern World, 1492 to the
present
Jewish Spirituality: Philosophers and Mystics
Judaism/ Feminism / Women’s Spirituality
Seminars: Topics in Jewish Religion and Culture:
-- Judaism, the Enlightenment and Religious Diversity
-- Women, Feminism and Spirituality
-- Tying and Untying the Knot: Women, Marriage and Divorce in Judaism
Selected Publications
The Port Jews of Habsburg Trieste: Absolutist Politics and Enlightenment Culture, Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999). This book was awarded the 2000 Barbara Jelavich Prize in Habsburg, Russian and Ottoman history by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, and was a Finalist in the 1999 National Jewish Book Awards, History category.
Guest Editor, “Port Jews of the Atlantic,” Special issue of journal Jew |
