Michael Hoberman

PROFESSOR
English Studies School of Arts and Sciences
Michael Hoberman
978.665.3746 Office: Miller Hall 213
Office Hours
Fall 2026

Monday 2 - 3:15 p.m.
Wednesday 2 - 3:15 p.m.

Biography

My most recent book, Imagining Early American Jews, explores popular interpretations of early Jewish history in the US. It was published by Oxford University Press in October 2025 and reviewed in The Wall Street Journal. Other books I've written include A Hundred Acres of America: The Geography of Jewish American Literary History and New Israel/New England: Jews and Puritans in Early America. My essays appear in numerous scholarly journals and popular venues, including Tablet Magazine. During the Spring of 2026, I was a senior research fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. During my time at the Katz Center, I completed a book about Theodore Seixas Solomons, the founder of California's John Muir Trail. That book is slated for publication by the University of California Press in late 2027.

Courses Taught

To see course descriptions go to the University Catalog.

Writing I, II (ENGL 1100/1200)
American Literature I: Legends/Massacres and Slavery/Freedom (ENGL 2110)
Ethnic American Literature (ENGL 2280)
African American Literature (19th and 20th centuries) (ENGL 2230/2235)
Storytelling and the Oral Tradition (ENGL 2440)
Folklore in America (undergraduate and graduate levels) (ENGL 3230)
Jewish American Literature and Culture (ENGL 3240)
Jewish Literature Around the World (ENGL 3380)
American Novel to 1950 (ENGL 3595)
​Major Author: Philip Roth (ENGL 4000)
American Novel Since WWII (ENGL 4430)
New England Literature and Culture (ENGL 4400)
English Studies Capstone (4999)
American Romanticism (Graduate)
American Art and Literature, 1800-1860 (Graduate)
Culture & Literature of Place: Regionalism in America, 1860-2000 (Graduate)
American Modernism (Graduate)

Background

Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Amherst (English and American Studies)
M.A., University of Massachusetts Amherst (English and American Studies)
B.A., Reed College (American Studies)

Jewish American literature and culture
Folklore and oral history
New England literature and culture

My books can be found at:

https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JS4QF2

Some of my magazine pieces can be found at:

https://www.tabletmag.com/contributors/michael-hoberman

A recent interview with me can be found here:

https://katz.sas.upenn.edu/resources/blog/qa-michael-hoberman-tracks-trail-blazing-trail-blazer-through-american-west

 

Imagining Early American Jews (Oxford 2025)

"Selected Publications":

For books, see Amazon link above in "Research Interests"

A selection of journal articles: 

“‘How important, how dignified, do we appear . . . exploring the works of an almighty Providence’”: Gershom Seixas, early American Jews, and the language of the Enlightenment.” Essay included in The Place of Religion in the Enlightenment, eds. Daniel Fulda, Laura Stevens, Sabine Volke-Burke). Oxford Studies in the Enlightenment (forthcoming 2026).

“Theodore Seixas Solomons: The Sierra Club’s Trailblazing Humanist,” Masorti: The New Journal of Conservative Judaism, 70.1 (July 2026).

“Revisiting Columbia’s 1800 Hebrew commencement speech.” American Jewish History, 108.3 (July 2024).

“‘Did you ever hear of Judah Benjamin?’: fictional representations of the Jewish Confederate.” Southern Jewish History, Volume 25 (2022). 

A Hundred Acres of America: The Geography of Jewish American Literary History (Rutgers 2018).

New Israel/New England: Jews and Puritans in Early America (University of Massachusetts 2011).

“‘How important, how dignified, do we appear . . . exploring the works of an almighty  Providence’”: Gershom Seixas, early American Jews, and the language of the Enlightenment.” Essay included in The Place of Religion in the Enlightenment, eds. Daniel Fulda, Laura Stevens, Sabine Volke-Burke). Oxford University Press (2021). 

“‘They have with faithfulness and care transmitted the Oracles of God unto us Gentiles’:  Jewish kabbalah and text study in the Puritan imagination.” Essay included in Kabbalah in America: Ancient Lore in the New World, ed. Brian Ogren. Brill (2020). 

“To prove the correctness and authenticity of my statements”: Solomon Nunes Carvalho’s revision of the Western travel narrative.” American Jewish History, 102.2 (April 2018).

“Parking the ark in Niagara Falls: Mordecai Manuel Noah and the imposition of meaning in Jewish American literary history.” Studies in American Jewish Literature, 37.1 (Spring 2018).

“Home of the Jewish Nation: London Jews in the eighteenth-century Anglo American imagination.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 50.3 (April 2017).