Dr. Noam Sienna

Curriculum Vitae

Noam Sienna

Curriculum Vitae 2024-2025

EDUCATION

2015-2020 PhD, Jewish History / Museum Studies (minor), University of Minnesota

2013-2015 Master of Arts, Religious Studies, University of Toronto

2011-2012 Master of Arts in Teaching, Judaic Studies, Brandeis University

2007-2011 Bachelor of Arts, Anthropology / Classics / Religion, Brandeis University
Summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with highest honours in Anthropology

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY AND TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Toronto Faculty of Arts & Science (2023-2025). Research fellow for Mellon-funded Hidden Stories project focusing on early modern Jewish book cultures.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion, St. Olaf College (2022-2023). Courses taught:

  • “The Art of the Medieval Book” (ART 276)
  • “The Hebrew Bible: Historical and Literary Approaches” (REL 122)
  • “Introduction to Judaism” (REL 248)
  • “Jews in the World of Islam” (REL 120)

Adjunct Assistant Professor, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities (2023). Courses taught:

  • “The Art of Scripture” (AT4004)

Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota (2022-2023). Courses taught:

  • “History of Modern Israel and Palestine: Society, Culture, and Politics” (HIST 3512)
  • “Muslims and Jews: Conflict and Co-existence” (HIST 3511)

Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of St. Thomas (2020-2021). Courses taught:

  • “The Middle East and North Africa in Global Perspective” (HIST 118)

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Franklin & Marshall College (2020-2021). Courses taught:

  • “Premodern Jewish History: Jews of East and West Through the Middle Ages” (HIS 153)

HONOURS AND AWARDS

  • Senior Fellow, Andrew Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography, 2022-present
  • Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Association for Jewish Studies, 2019-2020
  • Research Scholarship, Consortium for the Study of the Premodern World/Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2018-2019
  • Research Award, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, 2018
  • Riv-Ellen Prell Award for the Study of Jewish Culture, UMN Center for Jewish Studies, 2018
  • Doctoral Scholarship, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, 2018
  • Amos S. Deinard Fellowship in Jewish History, UMN Department of History, 2015-2016

PUBLICATIONS (PEER-REVIEWED)

  • “Tzena u-Re’ena (Go Out and See): The World of Jewish Books.” In Early Modern Jewish Civilization: Unity and Diversity in a Diasporic Society, ed. David Graizbord (Routledge, 2024), 274-304.

  • “‘He Should Prepare a Sauce’: Recovering a Haroset Recipe from ‘Abbasid Iraq.” Jewish Quarterly Review 113.4 (Fall 2023), 561-566.

  • ““In Search of Special Sensations”: Moïse (Maurice) Zekri’s Disorderly Life between Algeria and France (1879-1942).” Co-authored with Leslie Choquette (Assumption University). French Colonial History 21 (2023).
  • “Confession of Sodomy & Judaizing (Brazil, 1593),” “A Gender-Bending Jewish Runaway (New France, 1738),” and “A Rabbi Counsels a Gay Jewish G.I. (New York, 1944).” In Jews Across the Americas, 1492-Present, eds. Adriana Brodsky and Laura Leibman (NYU Press, 2023), 20-22; 70-72; 385-388.
  • “The Bible in North Africa: Modern Judaism.” Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, Vol 21, eds. Constance M. Furey et al. (De Gruyter, 2023), 766-768.
  • “‘Ask Now the Beasts and They Shall Teach You’: Qalonymos ben Qalonymos and his Hebrew Translation of the Epistle of the Animals.” In Iberian Babel: Multilingualism and Translation in the Medieval and the Early Modern Mediterranean, eds. Michelle Hamilton and Nuria Silleras-Fernandez (Brill, 2022), 105-123.
  • “Invisible Neighbors: Encounters with Demons among Jews and Muslims in Morocco.” In Jews and Muslims in Morocco: Their Intersecting Worlds, eds. Joseph Chetrit, Drora Arussy, and Jane Gerber (Lexington Press, 2021), 163-188.
  • “Shakshuka for All Seasons: Tunisian Jewish Foodways at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” In Making Levantine Cuisine: Modern Foodways of the Eastern Mediterranean, eds. Anny Gaul, Graham Auman Pitts, and Vicki Valosik (University of Texas Press, 2021), 170-183.
  • “Rabbis with Inky Fingers: the Making of an 18th-Century Hebrew Book between Amsterdam and North Africa.” The Jewish Bookshop of the World: Aspects of Print and Manuscript Culture in Early Modern Amsterdam / Studia Rosenthaliana, vol. 46 (forthcoming, Fall 2020).
  • “‘Remarkable Objects of the Three Religions’: Judaica in Early Modern European Collections.” Journal of the History of Collections, Volume 31, Issue 1 (2019), 17-29.
  • “‘It is a Minhag’: Algerian Judaism Through the Eyes of a Hebrew-Christian Missionary.” University of Toronto Journal of Jewish Thought, vol. 1, no. 5, 2015.
  • “Henna.” Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, 2nd ed. (ed. Noam Stillman). Leiden: Brill, 2013.

NON-REFEREED PUBLICATIONS

  • “Ten Unanswered Questions: An Unconventional Interview with Eve Adams.” In Geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, 2021.
  • “Pearl Hart.” The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women (jwa.org), 2021.
  • A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969 (ed.). Print-O-Craft (PA), 2019. Winner of 2019 Reference Award from the Association of Jewish Libraries, and 2019 Anthology Award from the Lambda Literary Association.
  • “Spinning a Rainbow Thread: Reflections on Writing Queer Jewish History,” G’vanim: the Journal of the Academy for the Jewish Religion, Vol. 10 (2019), 1-13.
  • “A Rainbow Thread.” Article published in Protocols, Issue 4: Pirkei Avot, November 2018, available online here.
  • “A Forgotten Gay Jewish Pioneer Rises Again.” Article published in Tablet Magazine, Jan. 2018, available online here.

PROFESSIONAL WORK EXPERIENCE

  • Lead Instructor, Workshop on Sephardi and Mizrahi Paleography (Yale University), 2024.
  • Lead Symposium Organizer, “Letters That Link Us: Histories and Mysteries of Hebrew Type” (University of Minnesota), 2024.
  • Affiliate Scholar, “Jewish & Queer in the Federal City” (Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum), 2023-2024.
  • Lead Instructor, Bodleian Library Summer Workshop on Hebrew Manuscripts (Oxford University), 2022 and 2023.
  • Lead Instructor, Workshop on Sephardi and Mizrahi Paleography (Jewish Theological Seminary), 2023.
  • Affiliate Scholar, “Twin Cities Houses of Worship 1849-1924 Research Project” (University of Minnesota), 2022-2023.
  • Affiliate Scholar, “International Forum on Judaica Provenance” (National Library of Israel and Association of Jewish Libraries), 2022-2023.
  • Affiliate Scholar, “In Plain Sight: Jewish Material Culture in the Long History of Islam” (Magnes Collection, UC Berkeley), 2021-2022.
  • Postdoctoral Researcher, Princeton Geniza Lab (Princeton University), Summer 2021.
  • Research Affiliate, Manuscript Migration Lab (Duke University), 2020-2021.
  • Instructor and Program Co-ordinator, “The Medieval Book in the K-12 Classroom” (UMN Center for Medieval Studies), 2017-2020.
  • Research Fellow, “Turkish Rugs on Tudor Walls” (Minneapolis Institute of Arts), Fall 2018.

 

Full CV, lectures and presentations, and references available upon request.