UW PRESS AUTHORS AVAILABLE AS SPEAKERS

Many of our authors are willing to lecture to campus and community audiences about issues surrounding the topics of their books. For further details about UW Press authors available to speak, or about necessary honoraria and expenses, please contact our publicity manager, at phone: (608) 263-0734, email: publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or fax: (608) 263-1132.

This list is organized alphabetically by author's last name:
ABC | DEF | GHI | JKL | MNO | PRS | TUV | WXYZ

ABC

Rachel Feldhay Brenner, author of Inextricably Bonded: Israeli Arab and Jewish Writers Re-Visioning Culture, is available to speak to classes, university seminars, book clubs, and interested groups about the cultural and intellectual history of the Zionist movement, the sources of Israeli-Arab conflict, Israeli cultural establishment, Jews and Arabs in Israeli fiction and other related topics. The book presents an innovating view on the history of Israel and its present situation from a cultural and literary perspective and offers an important contribution to all those interested in Jewish and Israeli studies. Brenner is professor of Hebrew and Semitic studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

DEF

Michael de Nie, author of The Eternal Paddy: Irish Identity and the British Press, 1798–1882, is available to speak about modern Britain and Ireland, the Victorian press, and anti-Irish stereotypes. His study of the British press and its relationship to Ireland is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to understand the course of Anglo-Irish relations and how the British press and public viewed Ireland in the nineteenth century. de Nie is an assistant professor of History at the University of West Georgia and resides in Atlanta.

Joan FitzPatrick Dean, author of Riot and Great Anger: Stage Censorship in Twentieth Century Ireland, is available to speak to classes, seminars, and community groups about Irish plays and films, stage censorship, and Irish theatre history (including the Abbey Theatre and its rivals). A distinguished Teacher Professor at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, she is an accomplished lecturer who has held two Fulbrights—one at the University of Nancy in France and the other at University College Galway in Ireland.

Lillian Faderman, author of Naked in the Promised Land: A Memoir, is available to speak to college and university classes, as well as Jewish groups outside of an academic setting, on the subject of being Jewish in America during the World War II years. Her talk, entitled "Safe in America," includes discussion of American anti-Semitism during the 1930s and '40s, American-Jewish attempts to rescue European Jews from "the Final Solution," and a personal view of the effects on American Jews of their losses during the Holocaust.

Charles Fenyvesi is the author of When Angels Fooled the World: Rescuers of Jews in Wartime Hungary. He has also written a critically acclaimed and much-translated book about his family history, When the World Was Whole: Three Centuries of Memories. He is available to speak about World War II in Europe, the varieties of Jewish experience in Eastern Europe, and the writing of family history. He is a former Washington Post reporter and U.S. News & World Report writer and editor. His articles about 19th and 20th-century European history, politics, and personalities as well as gardening have been published in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Los Angeles Times and many other publications.

GHI

Leah Garrett, author of Journeys beyond the Pale: Yiddish Travel Writing in the Modern World, is available to talk to classes about Jewish literature in general and Yiddish literature specifically. Journeys beyond the Pale analyzes a number of Yiddish stories of travel in order to see how Jewish literature described the changes that modernization brought to small town Jewish life. Leah Garrett is an assistant professor of Jewish literature at the University of Denver.

Rabbi Steven Greenberg, author of Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition, lectures on issues of Jewish culture, faith, and community and has been a senior teaching fellow at CLAL (National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership) for nearly twenty years.  Along with the filmmaker Sandi Simcha Dubowski, he conducted over 500 post-screening dialogues on the human and religious issues raised in the film Trembling Before G-d.  Rabbi Greenberg is available to speak on the biblical and rabbinic texts that address homosexuality, on the evidence of same-sex relations in Jewish history and literature, and on the capacity of both Jewish law and traditional religious communities to engage with the question of homosexuality responsibly. For the full range of his lecture topics see www.clal.org. 

Janet Hadda, author of Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Life, is available to speak to audiences about Eastern European Jewish life, Yiddish literature in America, the life of Isaac Bashevis Singer, and the future of Yiddish. Hadda is professor of Yiddish at UCLA and is a practicing psychoanalyst. She lives in Los Angeles.

Jurgen Herbst, emeritus professor of history and educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, is author of Requiem for a German Past: A Boyhood Among the Nazis. His account has been described as a story of a moral awakening that shows him caught between the prompting of his conscience and the demands of loyalty to his country. The book has been used as a supplementary text in college history classes on World War II and German and Jewish history. Herbst, now a professional associate and public lecturer at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, is available to speak to university classes and audiences about his experiences as a young boy in Nazi Germany.

JKL

Judith Deutch Kornblatt, the author of Doubly Chosen: Jewish identity, the Soviet Intelligentsia, and the Russian Orthodox Church, is available to speak on the topic of her book. Doubly Chosen provides the first detailed study of a unique cultural and religious phenomenon in post-Stalinist Russia-the conversion of thousands of Russian Jewish intellectuals to Orthodox Christianity, from the 1960s through the 1980s. Working primarily from oral interviews conducted in Russia, Israel, and the United States, Kornblatt underscores the conditions of Soviet life that spurred these conversions. Kornblatt is a professor in the department of Slavic Languages at the Wisconsin–Madison and a member of the Center for Jewish Studies and the religious studies program.

Jerome Legge, Jr. is author of Jews, Turks, and Other Stangers: The Roots of Prejudice in Modern Germany. He is professor and associate dean at the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia where he teaches a course on the Holocaust and Contemporary German Politics. He is able to speak to classes and groups and lecture on topics such as anti-Semitism, contemporary Germany, Judaism, and the Holocaust. Professor Legge is currently working on a project involving the development of democratic attitudes and practices in post-war Germany.

Alan Lelchuk, author of Brooklyn Boy, a novel about the growth and fortune of Aaron Schlossberg as he moves from boyhood to early adulthood in legendary Brooklyn, and is available to talk about that old special Brooklyn. He will cover such topics as what it was like to grow up in Brooklyn in the late 1940's and 50's and how different from his earlier works it was to write a book of mixed genres: fiction, autobiography, and non-fiction. He is also the author of American Mischief, an ambitious attempt to define the disorders of American culture. Originally published in 1970, the novel takes on sexual anarchy, political madness, the collapse of monogamy, and above all the high cost of extreme behavior. He lives in the hills of New Hampshire and teaches at Dartmouth College.

MNO

Yair Mazor, author of The Poetry of Asher Reich and, and of Pain, Pining and Pine Trees, is professor of Hebrew literature and head of the Hebrew Studies department at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. The author is willing to deliver talks and conduct discussions dedicated to modern Hebrew poetry, Biblical literature, feminism in modern Hebrew poetry and Biblical literature, war reflections in contemporary Israeli poetry, Holocaust reflections in modern Hebrew literature, and more.

Caren Neile has had to confront Theodore Adorno's admonition "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric", in the memoir she wrote with two survivors, Hidden: A Sister and Brother in Nazi Poland. Ms. Neile, who has an MFA in creative writing and teaches storytelling at Florida Atlantic University, used storytelling techniques to dramatize the wartime experiences of her co-authors. For Neile, the perpetuation of the Jewish storytelling tradition is vital. She sees the Holocaust as a source of stories that demonstrate the enduring values and strengths of her people.

Lesléa Newman, author of A Letter to Harvey Milk: Short Stories is the author of fifty books, including the pioneering work Heather Has Two Mommies. Many of her books concern themselves with lesbian identity and Jewish identity, as well as current topics such as AIDS, eating disorders, and sexual abuse. Her literary awards include Poetry Fellowships from the Massachusetts Artists Fellowship Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Baldwin Award for Cultural Achievement, and three Pushcart Prize nominations. Nine of her books have been Lambda Literary Award finalists. For more information see Lesléa's web site at www.lesleanewman.com
PRS

Norman Roth is the author of Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. This book is a thoroughly researched account of the conversion of Jews in Spain in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the question of the so-called "crypto Jews" or insincere converts, the origins and nature of the Inquisition, and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. The paper edition is not merely a reprint, but a revised and expanded version. Roth is professor emeritus of Hebrew and Semitic studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He would be available for general lectures or talks with appropriate classes.

Rochelle G. Saidel, author of The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, is available for lectures on the subject of her new book, the first in English to focus on the fate of Jewish women in this infamous concentration camp. She will also lecture on the general topic of women and the Holocaust. Dr. Saidel brings to life the stories of the Jewish prisoners in the context of the camp, so that her listeners and readers can better understand the despair particular to women in Ravensbrück and the ways that some of its victims managed to survive and rebuild their lives. Dr. Saidel, a political scientist, is the executive director of Remember the Women Institute in New York, which is dedicated to research and cultural projects that integrate women into history. She divides her time between New York, Jerusalem, and São Paulo, where she is a senior researcher at the Center for the Study of Women and Gender at the University of São Paulo.

George Salton and his daughter Anna Eisen have inspired audiences across the country at museums, Jewish Book Festivals, Jewish organizations and associations, book clubs, high schools, and on CNN NewsNight with Aaron Brown with their moving accounts of Salton's book, The 23rd Psalm: A Holocaust Memoir. Salton's gift is his preservation of the clear voice and forthright perspective of the eleven-year-old Polish boy who grew to young manhood slaving yet surviving in ten concentration camps. George Salton now resides in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and Anna Eisen in Southlake, Texas.

Jane Schapiro, the author of Inside a Class Action: The Holocaust and the Swiss Banks, is able to make the law and history come alive for students through her talks on the role of Switzerland during and after World War II and the complexities involved with using the U.S. judicial system to adjudicate Holocaust-related cases. Her book tells the story of the class-action suit against the Swiss banks on behalf of victims of the Holocaust. Readers of her book journey alongside one of the lead plaintiff lawyers, and experience the ups and downs that accompany such a large and groundbreaking case. Inside a Class Action is an absorbing narrative that sheds light on the paradoxes and challenges of trying to render justice for victims of the Holocaust. Schapiro is a freelance writer who lives in the Washington D.C. area. She has her MFA in writing and has published a volume of poetry.

Michael Seidman, the author of the prize-winning Republic of Egos, is available for lectures or class discussions about the Spanish Civil War, social history, military history, and comparative revolutions and civil wars. Stanley Payne has called Republic of Egos "the most original piece of research on the Spanish Civil War." Seidman, the author of three books on Spanish and French history, teaches at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Barnett Singer is co-author of Cultured Force: Makers and Defenders of the French Colonial Empire, a partly revisionist estimate of French imperialists. Bridging gaps between intellectual history, biography, and military/colonial history, Singer and co-author John Langdon provide a challenging, readable interpretation of French imperialism and some of its leading figures from the early modern era through the Fifth Republic. They ask us to rethink and reevaluate, pulling away from the usual shoal of simplistic condemnation. In a series of finely-etched biographical studies, and with much detail on both imperial culture and wars (including World War I and II), they offer a balanced, deep, strong portrait of key makers and defenders of the French Empire, one that will surely stimulate much historical work in the field. Singer is available to give a biographical talk relating to the background and achievements of some of these fascinating figures, particularly in war-wracked eras. Singer is a history professor at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario.

Ilan Stavans, featured in Eight Conversations: Ilan Stavans by Neal Sokol and editor of Jacobo Timmerman's Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number is available to speak on campus about Jewish-Latino relations in the United States; the Inquisition, the Holocaust and Anti-Semitism in Latin America; and Anti-Semitism among Hispanics in the United States. He also often lectures on world Jewish literature and Latin American Jewish literature. Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. Among his many books, which have been translated into half a dozen languages, is The Scroll and the Cross: 1,000 Years of Jewish-Hispanic Literature. His PBS show La Plaza: Conversations with Ilan Stavans is syndicated in 70 stations. He has been a National Book Critics Circle Award nominee and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Latino Literature Prize, and many other honors. Routledge published The Essential Ilan Stavans in 2000. He currently lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Larry Stillman, author of A Match Made in Hell: The Jewish Boy and the Polish Outlaw Who Defied the Nazis, is available to speak about the story and research behind his book. A Match Made in Hell tells the true adventures of a teenaged Jewish boy in occupied Poland who was rescued from certain death and trained in anti-Nazi sabotage by a notorious Polish criminal-turned-mercenary. The activities of this bandit, sending the boy on missions strictly for financial gain, elevate this tale to one of historical significance. Discussion will also cover the complex underground forces that were in operation, along with the moral choices that were made in order to survive. Stillman is a writer who resides in suburban Chicago, Illinois.

TUV

WXYZ

A Duel of Giants: Bismarck, Napoleon III, and the Origins of the Franco-Prussian War has been called one of the "most engrossing stories of the crisis of July 1870" ever written. David Wetzel, its author, has given four readings of the book that were broadcast nationally in the spring and summer of 2002 on CSPAN 2. Its vivid language and lively atmospheric detail make it ideal as a supplementary text for courses in 19th-century international relations as well as those dealing with the general histories of Germany and France during this period. Wetzel is an administrator at the University of Califorinia–Berkeley as well as lecturer in the department of history. A Duel of Giants is available in paperback and is being translated into German. Wetzel is available to speak to groups on this subject.

Tela Zasloff, author of A Rescuer's Story: Pastor Pierre-Charles Toureille in Vichy France, has written about a French pastor-rescuer who, during World War II in Vichy France, saved hundreds of refugees, mostly Jews, from the Nazis. The book explores his roots in Huguenot history, his background in international Protestant church movements of the 1930's, and the wartime moral dilemmas of occupied France as the context for his extraordinary courage and resourcefulness. She has also written Saigon Dreaming, a book about living in Vietnam in the 1960's and Restoring Vision, about doctors curing blindness around the world. The author lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

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