Erin Faigin

Biography

My work is focused on Jewish life in the San Fernando Valley, the large suburban expanse of Northern Los Angeles where I grew up. The valley is home to half of Los Angeles’s Jews, making it one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. I am especially interested in ethnoburbs, popular culture, intellectual networks, working class Jews and politics. My dissertation explores and seeks to connect the history of Valley Girls, private schooling, pornography, freeway construction and Jewish chicken farmers in the San Fernando Valley.

Education

M.A. History, UW-Madison, 2019
B.A., History, UC Berkeley, 2016

Field

• U.S./North American History
• Jewish History

Working Dissertation Title

• “Among Their Own: Jewish Suburbanization in the San Fernando Valley “

Selected Publications

• “The Wandering You: Jewish & American Identity.” Marginalia: Los Angeles Review of Books, November 2018.
• “The Latest in Yiddish Studies in English in 2017.” In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, April 2018.
• “Where Text Meets Sweat: Reading Yiddish Utopia in the Utah Landscape.” In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, December 2017.
• “Lernen yidish far sholem: Teaching Yiddish in a Secular Jewish School.” In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, March, 2017.
• “Anti-fascist Yiddish Song: Shneer and Eisenberg on Lin Jaldati.” Interview, In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, February 2016.
• “Reflections on Space in Learning Yiddish.” In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies, December 2015.

Courses Taught as TA

• History 102 – American History from the Civil War to the Present
• History 152 – History of the American West since 1850
• History 219 – The American Jewish Experience: From Shtetl to Suburb

Courses Taught as Instructor

• History 201 – The Historian’s Craft: The Suburb in American History
• History 227 – Race and Place in the Upper Midwest