Starr discusses new book for UC Press' Luminos series
UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies Luminos Book Talk Series.
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New Associate Professor
Jason Mokhtarian is a scholar of the Talmud in its Persian-Sasanian context. He received degrees in Jewish Studies and Iranian Studies from the University of Chicago and UCLA. Professor Mokhtarian is the author of Rabbis, Sorcerers, Kings, and Priests: The Culture of the Talmud in Ancient Iran (University of California Press, 2015), which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and a forthcoming book entitled Medicine in the Talmud: Natural and Supernatural Remedies between Magic and Science.
New Assistant Professor
Noah Tamarkin is a political and legal anthropologist of race, citizenship, and genomics with interdisciplinary commitments to Science and Technology Studies, African Studies, and Jewish Studies. Tamarkin's research projects examine how DNA transforms power and politics as it becomes unevenly part of everyday life through technologies like ancestry testing and criminal forensics.
New Visiting Assistant Professor
Jonathan Branfman researches race, masculinity, and Jewish identity in popular media, especially digital media like YouTube. His work invites Jewish, feminist, queer, critical race, and media studies to grasp how historical anti-Semitism shapes present-day U.S. visual culture, and how Jewish stars harness this stigma to enter America's core cultural debates.