Tony Michels
Associate Professor

eMail: aemichels@wisc.edu
Phone: (608)265-2521
Office: 4103 Mosse Humanities
Mailbox: 4004 Mosse Humanities

Curriculum Vitae: View PDF

Office Hours: Tuesdays 3:00 - 5:00

Education: PhD: Stanford; MA: Stanford; BA: University of California

Bio Sketch:

My specialization is American Jewish.

My Research and Teaching Interests include American Jewish history, Yiddish culture, Russian Jewish history, socialism, working-class history, and nationalism.

Selected Publications:

Books:

• A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York (Harvard University Press, 2005).

Articles:

• “Communism and the Problem of Ethnicity in the 1920s: The Case of Moissaye Olgin,” in Studies in Contemporary Jewry vol. 25 (2011), pp. 26-48.
• “Exporting Yiddish Socialism: New York’s Role in the Russian Jewish Workers’ Movement,” Jewish Social Studies vol. 16, no. 1 (Fall 2009): 1-26.
• “Communalist History and Beyond: What Is the Potential of American Jewish History?” American Jewish History vol. 95, no. 1 (March 2009): 61-71.
• Co-author (Hasia Diner). “Considering American Jewish History,” OAH Newsletter (Nov. 2007), pp. 9, 18.
• "I Am Not Hippy Johnny: How Jonathan Richman Used His Outsider Status to Revolutionize Rock and Roll,"Guilt and Pleasure no. 6 (Fall 2007):  82-87.
• "Socialism and the Writing of American Jewish History: World of Our Fathers Revisited" American Jewish History vol. 88, no. 4 (December, 2000): pp. 521-546.

Awards:

• Salo W. Baron Prize from the American Academy for Jewish Research (2006)
• Finalist for the Weinberg Judaic Studies Institute Book Award (2007)
• Finalist for the Saul Viener Book Prize, American Jewish Historical Society (2007).

Courses Taught:

Lecture Courses:

• History 219 - American Jewish Experience - Syllabus 2011 (pdf)
• History 221 - Jews in American Popular Culture
• History 374 - Modern Political History of the Jews
• History 416 - Eastern European Jews in the United States, 1880s-1930s - Syllabus 2009 (pdf)

Undergraduate Seminars:

• History 220 - Labor and Working Class History in the U. S.
• History 600 - Advanced Seminar in History - Topics: "African Americans and Jews in Urban US"; "Zionism and Its Critics"; "Immigrants in Urban America"

Graduate Courses:

• History 891/History 901 - Modern Jewish History in Comparative Perspective: "Russian and the United States" Syllabus 2011 (pdf)
• History 901 - Studies in American History - Topics: "American Jewish History"; "Communism and Anti-Communism in U. S. History"; "Political History of American Labor"
• History 902 - Research Seminar in U. S. Social History