Degrees: Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature (NYU), M.A. in English (Bar Ilan University, Israel), B.A in Hebrew and English (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
Research Interests: Author of three books, among them the award-winning Eve's Journey: Feminine Images in Hebraic Literary Tradition, as well as numerous essays in the areas of biblical influences on Western Literature, Hebraic literary tradition, women in Bible and Judaic literature, Israeli and Middle Eastern politics and culture.
Activities: Public lecturer and TV political commentator. As Director of the Center for Judaic & Middle Eastern Studies: teaches and organizes seminars, lecture series, and full-day conferences in all areas of Israel and Middle Eastern politics and culture, as well as in Jewish history, literature, and thought.
Addresses:
Department: Judaic Studies
Office: 3.65, 3.13
Phone: (203) 251-8435 / 9525
Email: Nehama.Aschkenasy@uconn.edu
Dr. Joel Blatt, Associate Professor, History
Background: Professor Blatt received his Ph.D. from the University
of Rochester and an undergraduate degree from Cornell University. He has
edited a book with an Introduction on The French Defeat of 1940: Reassessments
(1998). He has also published a number of articles on France and Italy
between the two world wars and is presently working on two books. He has
received a number of grants from the UConn Research Foundation, and has
served a Provost's Fellowship. He is twice the recipient of the UConn
Stamford Campus Outstanding Teacher Award.
Expertise: European History: French Revolution to the Present,
20th Century Europe, France, 1900 - 1945, Italy 1914 - 1945
Addresses:
Department: History
Office: 3.54
Phone: (203) 251-8427
Email: Joel.Blatt@uconn.edu
Dr. Jeffrey A. Lefebvre, Associate Professor, Political Science
Background: Professor Lefebvre received his Ph.D. from the University
of Connecticut. Among his works, he has published a book, Arms for the
Horn: U.S. Security Policy in Ethiopia and Somalia, 1953-1991. He received
the Malone Fellowship in Islamic & Arab Studies in 1993 and 1995 for study
visits to Kuwait, Syria and Saudi Arabia. He has made numerous presentations
at academic conferences.
Expertise: American Foreign Policy, Middle East, Horn of Africa/Northeast
Africa, Director -- Middle Eastern Language & Area Studies Program
Addresses:
Department: Political Science
Office: 3.70
Phone: (203) 251-8434
Email: jeffrey.lefebvre@uconn.edu
Dr. Nechama Tec, Professor, Sociology
Degrees: Columbia University, B.A., M.A. and Ph.D.
Research Interests: Since 1977, Nechama Tec has focused her research
on issues relating to the Holocaust, including compassion, altruism, resistance
to evil and the rescue of the Jews during World War II. Her most recent
research has been on gender and the destruction of European Jewry and
will be published as a book by Yale University Press in 2002. In 1997,
she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Miles Lerman Center for the Study
of Jewish Resistance at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In
1995, she was a Scholar-in-Residence at the International Institute for
Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.
Activities: Nechama Tec has written six other books and numerous
articles. Her books include Defiance: The Bielski Partisans (Oxford University
Press, 1993) which won the International Ann Frank Special Recognition
Prize in Switzerland in 1994 and in 1995 the First Prize for Holocaust
Literature by the World Federation of Fighters, Partisans and Concentration
Camp Survivors in Israel. The book has been translated into Hebrew, German,
Dutch, and Italian, and was selected as a book of the month by the United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In the Lion's Den: The life of Oswarld
Rufeisen (Oxford University Press, 1990). Nominated for Pulitzer Prize,
has been translated into Hebrew. A French translation is forthcoming.
When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied
Poland (Oxford University Press, 1986) won the Merit of Distinction Award
from the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. Dry Tears: The Story
of a Lost Childhood (Oxford University Press, 1984), which also received
the Merit of Distinction Award from the Anti-Defamation League, has been
translated into Dutch, German, and Hebrew.
Outreach and other Activities: Nechama Tec has served on many advisory
boards including the Advisory Board of the Institute for the Study of
Violence of the Boston Graduate School of Pshychoanalysis, the Braun Center
for the Holocaust Studies of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith,
and the Hidden Child Foundation/ADL. She is a frequent presenter at professional/scholarly
national and international meetings as well as a speaker to community
organizations, and a radio and television interviewee.
Addresses:
Department: Sociology
Office: 3.63
Phone: (203) 251-8539