2017-2018 Recipient
Maxwell Greenberg [Chicana/o Studies] studies Jewish migration, transnationalism and race in Mexico, and his dissertation explores the entrepreneurial, political, and religious networks established by Jewish migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border region during the 20th century. As the recipient of the year-long Jack H. Skirball Fellowship, Maxwell will teach an adult education course at the Skirball Cultural Center in Spring 2019 on Latino Jewish history & culture. In addition, Maxwell will conduct archival research between Summer and Fall of 2018, during which he plans to visit academic, municipal, and federal archives in both the United States and Mexico. His inquiry into Jewish settlement at the U.S.-Mexico border will primarily contribute to the field of Latin American Jewish Studies, but uniquely puts this history in conversation with Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies—an unexplored dialogue that highlights racial formation and colonization as crucial, and often overlooked processes, in discussions of diaspora Jews in North America.
Drawing from the core pedagogical principals of Chicana/o Studies, Geenberg strives to create community engaged scholarship that reflects the true ethno-racial, geographic, linguistic, and class diversity of the Jewish diaspora in the Americas. He has led “Anti-racism and De-Ashkenormativity” workshops, was a guest speaker at the event, “Mundo Judío: Navigating the Spanish Speaking Jewish World,” hosted by the Jewish Federation, and has written on the topic of borders, Jewishness and gender for PROTOCOLS, a new online quarterly for Jewish art and politics. Greenberg is also a Mellon Fellow in the Urban Humanities and currently collaborates with the UCLA Labor Center and indigenous Oaxacan community organizers to create a bilingual community guide to digital mapping.
The next application for the Jack H. Skirball Fellowship in Modern Jewish Culture will be available in the 2019-2020 academic year.
