Dr. Ranen Omer-Sherman joins the Humanities Program

In his teaching and scholarship, Ranen Omer-Sherman, Ph.D., specializes in Israeli literature and film as well as Jewish literature of the Diaspora. Special areas of interest include the Jewish graphic novel, coming-of-age narratives; Holocaust memoir, fiction, and poetry; representations of war in contemporary Israeli arts and culture; and Israeli and Palestinian representations of “the other” in art and film.

Dr. Omer-Sherman is the author of three books and the co-editor of two, including Diaspora & Zionism in Jewish American Literature, Israel in Exile: Jewish Writing and the Desert, Imagining the Kibbutz: Visions of Utopia in Literature & Film, The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches, and Narratives of Dissent: War in Contemporary Israeli Arts and Culture. He has also contributed numerous journal essays and book chapters to major publications. Recognized for his excellence in scholarship and teaching, Dr. Omer-Sherman has received numerous awards and honors, most recently serving as a Fellow at the prestigious Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies Fellowship at the University of Michigan.

In 1975 at age 17, Omer-Sherman moved from his native California to Israel, where he served in the Israeli military, worked as a desert guide in the Negev and Sinai, and helped found a kibbutz. After 13 years, he returned to the United States to attend college and graduate school. He earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Notre Dame. After two years as assistant professor at Saint Louis University in Madrid, Spain, he subsequently taught at the University of Miami for thirteen years where he was promoted to full professor of English in 2009. He joined the faculty of UofL in 2014.