Laurence
Roth

Susquehanna University
Ruth Meltzer Fellowship

Research Topic

American Jewish Popular Literatures: Narrative and Kosher Hybridity

Bio

Laurence Roth is the Charles B. Degenstein Professor of English and Co-Chair of the Department of English and Creative Writing at Susquehanna University where he founded and directs the Jewish and Israel Studies Program and the English–Publishing and Editing major. His current research examines American Jewish literature as an activity, constituted not only by authors and texts, but also through commerce and within social space.

Roth received his PhD in English from UCLA. He serves as editor of Modern Language Studies, a publication of NeMLA, and has previously held fellowships at the Katz Center and at the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan.

Selected publications

  • edited with Nadia Valman, The Routledge Handbook to Contemporary Jewish Cultures (Routledge, 2015)
  • Inspecting Jews: American Jewish Detective Stories (Rutgers University Press, 2004)

Fellowship

2020–2021

Delving into some of the most pressing debates within US history and Jewish history, and examining vital questions shaping Jewish cultural studies, literary theory, and social scientific inquiry

2004–2005

Meditating on modern Jewish literature in its entirety and all its methods of study.