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Dainy Bernstein

Dainy Bernstein

Dainy Bernstein CV

Postdoctoral Research Associate

PhD in English, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 2021

BA in English Literature, City College of New York, CUNY, 2012

dainyb@illinois.edu

Other professional appointments

Research focus

I study American Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewish children's literature with a particular focus on the texts' positions within American culture, children's literature, and American Judaism. My first book, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press's Elements Series, traces the publishing history of this corpus, and my current project analyzes historical fiction within the corpus.

Honors and Awards

  • AJS Contingent Faculty Research Grant, Association for Jewish Studies (2023)
  • Gilboa Grant for Research Travel, Jewish Studies Program, University of Pittsburgh (2023)
  • Gilboa Grant for Book Purchases, Jewish Studies Program, University of Pittsburgh (2022)
  • Alfred Kazin Prize for the Best Dissertation in American Literature and Culture, CUNY Graduate Center (2021)
  • Lynn Kadison Dissertation Year Fellowship, English Dept, CUNY GC (2019)

Courses currently teaching

Publications & Papers

  • “‘I Can’t Go to the Public Library’: The Limited Literacy Sponsorscape of American Haredi Children’s Literature.” Forthcoming from Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 48.4.
  • The Development of American Haredi Children’s Literature. Forthcoming from Cambridge University Press Elements Series, 2024.
  • Collected Essays, Artifacts of Orthodox Jewish Childhoods. Ben-Yehuda Press, April 2022.

Presentations

  • "'It could have been the twelfth, the fifteenth or even the eighteenth century': The Haredi Chronotope and Haredi Children's Historical Fiction." Association of Jewish Studies, 17-19 December 2023, San Francisco, CA.
  • "Avner Gold’s Ruach Ami Series: A Case Study of Haredi Historical Fiction." Historical Fiction Research Conference. 17-19 February 2023. Virtual event.
  • "Our World: Boundaries and Geographies in the Haredi Jewish Children’s Olomeinu Magazine." City in a Forest. 2-4 June 2022. Children’s Literature Association, Atlanta, GA.
  • "A Nation Who Dwells Alone: Haredi Children’s Historical Fiction’s Rhetoric of Separatism." PAMLA. 11-14 November 2021. University of Nevada, Las Vegas (virtual event). 
  • "Haredi Children’s Literature in the Late Twentieth Century." 10 August 2021. Virtual lecture hosted by the Association of Jewish Libraries.
  • "Worlds Apart: The Development of the Olomeinu / Our World Magazine." Childhoods and Religion. 19 March 2021. Columbia University (virtual event).
  • "Klal Yisrael’s Guarantee: Children as the Key to Messianic Redemption in Haredi Textual and Musical Culture." The End Times: Approaches to the Apocalypse. 12 March 2021. English Students Association, The Graduate Center, CUNY (virtual event).
  • "From Scandal to Emotional Vulnerability: The Trajectory of OTD Memoirs and Fiction." On the Margins of Contemporary Jewish Orthodoxies. 29 October 2020. Baruch College, CUNY (virtual event).
  • "Digital Archive and Textual Analysis for American Haredi Children’s Literature." Children’s Literature and Digital Humanities. 22-23 October 2020. The University of Antwerp, Belgium (virtual event).
  • "Sharing Spaces, Shaping Identities: American Haredi Children’s Literature." NeMLA. 6 March 2020. Boston, MA.