Natan Meir

Natan Meir
Natan Meir

Natan M. Meir, Lorry I. Lokey Chair in Judaic Studies
Contact:
(503) 725-4038
meir@pdx.edu

Office: UCB 465C

Website: www.natanmeir.com


 
Courses Taught

JST/HST 318U: Jewish History II from the Middle Ages to the Present 

WLL 319U: Yiddish Folklore and Culture

JST/HST 372: History of Antisemitism

HST 491/492: The Shtetl (two-term upper-level History seminar

 

Course Syllabi for Past Terms

Documents forthcoming

About

A scholar of the social, cultural, and religious history of East European Jewry, Natan Meir is the author of Kiev, Jewish Metropolis: A History, 1859-1914 (2010) and Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern Europe, 1800-1939 (2020). He lectures widely on Jewish history and culture in Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and the Baltics; Jewish folklore and magic; and Jewish disability history. He also serves as a museum consultant. He is now working on a study of lived Judaism that explores the persistence of folk traditions and magical practices in the lives of ordinary Jews, with particular attention to gender and the body.

 

Degrees

Ph.D. Jewish History, Columbia University, 2004
M.Phil. Jewish History, Columbia University, 1999
B.A. History, Columbia University, 1994


Research Interests

Social, cultural, and religious history of East and East-Central European Jewry
Modern European Jewish history
American and Canadian Jewish history
History of subaltern and marginalized groups
History of disability


Representative Publications

Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern Europe, 1800-1939 (Stanford University Press, 2020).

Kiev, Jewish Metropolis: A History, 1859-1914 (Indiana University Press, 2010).

Anti-Jewish Violence: Rethinking the Pogrom in East European History, co-editor (Indiana University Press, 2010).

 

Public History Projects 

The Zekelman Holocaust Center, Farmington Hills, MI (scriptwriter and consultant for new permanent exhibition) 

Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, Moscow (member of academic advisory committee, author of all museum text)