Laura Leibman is a Professor of English and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Her most recent book Messianism, Secrecy, and Mysticism: A New Interpretation of Early American Jewish Life (2012) won a National Jewish Book Award, a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award, and was selected as one of Choice journal’s Outstanding Academic Titles for 2013. She has written numerous articles on early American life and material culture. In addition to her print work, she curates the Jewish Atlantic World database and served as the Academic Director for multimedia television series American Passages: A Literary Survey (2002). She is currently completing a book entitled The Material of Race: How Emancipation Transformed American Jews.
