Katya Gibel Mevorach

Katya Gibel Mevorach (born 18 June 1952) is Professor of Anthropology and American Studies at Grinnell College.^[1] Under the name Katya Gibel Azoulay, she is author of an explication and theory of identities, Black, Jewish and Interracial: It's Not the Color of Your Skin but the Race of Your Kin, and Other Myths of Identity.^[2]

Life and career

Gibel Mevorach was born to Inge Gibel (Miriam Lederer) and Ronald L.X. Gibel in New York City, New York. She is an alumna of The Brearley School in New York and received a B.A. and M.A. in African Studies from Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, where she lived between 1970 and 1991. In 1991 she returned to the United States. Four years later, Gibel Mevorach earned a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Duke University. In January 1996, Gibel Mevorach was invited to Grinnell College as a Scholar-in-Residence and joined as an assistant professor the following year. She served as Chair of the Africana Studies Concentration from 1996–2000 and in 2003 helped initiate the transition of Africana Studies into an expanded American Studies Concentration, serving as the new Chair between 2004 and 2005. Gibel Mevorach also served on the Grinnell College Diversity Steering Committee between 2002 and 2005.^[1]

Gibel Mevorach is married to Paris-based visual artist and filmmaker, Yorame Mevorach (Oyoram, Films Hors Ecran/Offscreen Motion Pictures). She has three adult children from a previous marriage.

Bibliography

Books

• Black, Jewish and Interracial: It's Not the Color of Your Skin but the Race of Your Kin and Other Myths of Identity.^[2] [Honorable Mention for Outstanding Book Awards for books published in 1997 by The Gustavus Meyers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America, Boston University School of Social Work]

Chapters

• "When Words Have Failed and Political Rhetoric Turns Stale: Race, Racism and Caste." ^[3]
• “Reflections on ‘Race’ and the Biologization of Difference.”^[4]
• “Interpreting the Census: The Elasticity of Whiteness and the Depoliticization of Race.” ^[5]
• “Jewish Identity and the Politics of a (Multi)Racial Category.” ^[6]
• “Personal Landmarks on Pedagogical Landscapes.” ^[7]

Articles

• “Les identités juives au miroir de l’héritage du racisme aux Etats Unis.” ^[8]
• “Race, racism, and academic complicity.” ^[9]
• “Reflections on ‘Race’ and the Biologization of Difference.” ^[10]
• “Not an Innocent Pursuit: The Politics of a ‘Jewish’ Genetic Signature.” ^[11]
• Contribution to The Woman’s Table: A Passover Seder Sourcebook,^[12]
• “Jewish in America or the Search for an Identity.” ^[13]
• “Jewishness After Mount Sinai: Jews, Blacks and the (Multi)Racial Category.” ^[14]
• "(White) Women and (Racial) Diversity in the Academy: Reflections on Intentions and Interventions." ^[15]
• "Experience, Empathy and Strategic Essentialism," ^[16]
• "Outside Our Parents' House: Race, Culture and Identity," ^[17]
• "Appropriating Anthropology: Epistemological Standpoints and the Space for Race" ^[18]
• "'Why are You Pushing Me Away?'" ^[19]
• "Historical Background of the African National Congress," ^[20]

Book reviews

• Review of Eric Sundquist, Strangers in The Land: Blacks, Jews, Post-Holocaust America.^[21]
• Review of Maureen Mahon, Right to Rock: The Black Rock Coalition and the Cultural Politics of Race.^[22]
• Review of Francisco Valdes, Jerome McCristal Culp, and Angela P. Harris, eds. Crossroads, Directions and a New Critical Race Theory.^[23]
• Review of Lorraine Delia Kenny. Daughters of Suburbia: Growing Up White, Middle-Class and Female.^[24]
• Review of Ed. David Parker and Miri Song. Rethinking ‘Mixed Race.’ ^[25]
• Review of Betty N. Hoffman. Jewish Hearts: A Study of Dynamic Ethnicity in the United States and the Soviet Union.^[26]
• Review of Rachel F. Moran. Interracial Intimacy: the Regulation of Race and Romance.^[27]
• Review of Oyekan Owomoyela, The African Difference: Discourse on Africanity and the Relativity of Cultures.^[28]
• Review of Emily Miller Budick, Blacks and Jews in Literary Conversation.^[29]
• Review of Crispin Sartwell, Act Like You Know: African-American Autobiography and White Identity.^[30]
• Review of Jon Michael Spencer, The New Colored People: The Mixed-Race Movement In America.^[31]

Op-Ed essays

• "Injustice, Prejudice and Peace," ^[32]
• "Reflections on the Failure of Feminist Rhetoric," ^[33]
• "South Africa: Reflections and Lessons," ^[34]
• "Inaccurate Equations: Racism vs. Nationalism," ^[35]
• "Rather than Curse the Darkness: A Call for Mobilization," ^[36]
• "Israel-South Africa Ties: Avoiding Real Sanctions" ^[37]
• "Jews, Israel and South Africa" ^[38]
• "Familiar Themes," ^[39]
• "Elitism in the Women's Peace Camp," ^[40]
• "Courting Pretoria," ^[41]
• "Stigma of Implicit Support," ^[42]
• "Raising Wrong Issues," ^[43]

Encyclopedia entries

• Entry on “Iowa.”^[44]

References

1. "Katya Gibel Mevorach". Grinnell College web site. Retrieved 2010-05-26.
2. Azoulay, Katya Gibel (1997). Black, Jewish and Interracial: It's Not the Color of Your Skin but the Race of Your Kin, and Other Myths of Identity. Duke University Press, Durham and London. ISBN 0-8223-1975-6."
3. Against Stigma: Studies in Caste, Race and Justice Since Durban. eds. Balmurli Natrajan and Paul Greenough, Delhi: Orient Longman Press (2008).
4. Race and Contemporary Medicine. Ed. Sander Gilman, London: Routledge, December 2007.
5. Racial Liberalism and the Politics of Urban America eds. Curtis Stokes and Theresa Melendez (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2003), 155-170.
6. Jewish Location: Traversing Racialized Landscapes. eds. Lisa Tessman and Bat-Ami Bar On (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 89-113.
7. Personal Effects: The Social Character of Scholarly Writing. eds. Deborah Holdstein and David Bleich. (Utah State University Press, 2001), 277-295.
8. ed. Shmuel Trigano, Juifs & Noirs du mythe a la réalité. Pardes 44 (2008) ,119-132.
9. American Ethnologist Volume 34, Number 2 (May 2007).
10. Patterns of Prejudice, 40, 4-5 (2006), 353-380. (ed. Sander Gilman (Routledge 2006).
11. Developing World Bioethics (3,2 December 2003), 119-126.
12. sponsored by Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2003).
13. Review Essay for American Anthropologist 103, 1 (March 2001),197-203.
14. Identities.8, 2 (2001), 211-246. Version of this article also in Bridges: A Journal for Jewish Feminists. 9,1 (2001), 31-45.
15. The Review of Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies 20, 3 (1998), 211-227.
16. Cultural Studies 11, 1 (1997), 89-110.
17. Research in African Literature 27, 1 (1996), 129-142.
18. SAPINA Bulletin VI, 1 (1994), 13-29.
19. Noga: Feminist Journal (Fall 1993), 31-33 [Hebrew].
20. Israeli Defense Forces Monthly Bulletin 10 (December 1990), 20-30 [Hebrew].
21. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 24, 4 (2006) 209-224.
22. Maureen Mahon.Duke University Press, 2004. American Ethnologist 32, 3, August 2005 (in print and on-line).
23. Temple University Press, 2002. American Ethnologist Volume 31, 3 August 2004 (in print and on-line).
24. East Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000. American Anthropologist 105, 2 (June 2003), 434.
25. London: Pluto, 2001. Research in African Literature 34, 2 (Summer 2003), 233-235.
26. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2001. American Anthropologist 104, 3 (September 2002), 979-980.
27. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 2001. The American Historical Review (June 2002), 886-887.
28. New York: Lang, 1996. Research in African Literatures 32, 4 (Winter2001),217-218.
29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Research in African Literatures 32,1 (Spring 2001), 161-162.
30. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Biography 22, 3 (1999), 372-379.
31. New York: New York University Press, 1997. African American Review 33, 1 (1999), 151-153.
32. New Outlook, Hashkafah Hadashah, Tel Aviv (June 1991), 14-16.
33. Noga: Feminist Journal (Winter 1991), 17, 19 [Hebrew].
34. New Outlook, Hashkafah Hadashah, Tel Aviv (April 1990), 35-37.
35. New Outlook, Hashkafah Hadashah, Tel Aviv (March/April 1989), 38-39.
36. New Outlook, Hashkafah Hadashah, Tel Aviv (March 1987), 13-14.
37. Viewpoint : Publication of Mapam & Kibbutz Artzi/Hashomer Hatzair (April/May 1987), 1-2.
38. Israel Horizons (The Socialist Zionist Journal) (May/June 1986), 12-14.
39. The Jerusalem Post (Israel), 8 November 1989;
40. The Jerusalem Post (Israel), 2 July 1989;
41. The Jerusalem Post (Israel), 9 October 1986;
42. The Jerusalem Post (Israel), 8 April 1986;
43. The Jerusalem Post (Israel), 7 April 1985.
44. Civil Rights in the United States edited by Waldo E. Martin and Patricia Sullivan (New York: Macmillian Reference, USA, 2000).

External links

• http://www.akadem.org/sommaire/themes/histoire/3/6/module_1683.php - Les identités juives au miroir du racisme au États-Unis.” Ham et Sem, Juifs et Noirs du mythe à la réalité Symposium international. Collège des études juives de l’Alliance israélite universelle, Paris, France 3 décembre 2006.
• http://www.barnard.edu/sfonline/jewish/panel1_02.htm - Plenary Panelist, Jewish Women Changing America: Cross Generational Conversations, Barnard College, 29 October 2005