Samuel Spinner

Samuel Spinner is a postdoctoral fellow in Yiddish Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. After receiving his PhD from the Department of Germanic Languages at Columbia University in 2012, he was the Ross Visiting Assistant Professor of Yiddish and Jewish Studies at UCLA. His in-progress book, entitled The Museum of the Jews: Salvaging the Primitive in German-Jewish and Yiddish Literature and Visual Culture, examines the conjunction of ethnographic and museological practices with strategies of identity formation in German and Yiddish texts and art representing Jews. Spinner is a co-editor of “German Jewish Cultures,” a book series published by Indiana University Press and is a member of In geveb's editorial board. In addition to his work on modern culture, which includes several articles on the connections between literature, art, and Jewish ethnography, he maintains an interest in the early modern period, and has translated the oldest Yiddish book written by a woman—Meneket Rivkah, published by JPS.