Cross-Appointments
Fields of Study
- Jewish Studies
Areas of Interest
- Russian Jewish History, Culture and Diaspora
- Soviet Jewish Culture
- Holocaust in the Soviet Union
- Music and Violence
- Post-Soviet Jewish Diaspora
- Religion in Totalitarian Societies
Biography
Anna Shternshis received her doctoral degree (DPhil) from Oxford University in 2001, and is the author of critically acclaimed monographs, including Soviet and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Indiana UP, 2006), When Sonia Met Boris: An Oral History of Jewish Life under Stalin (Oxford UP, 2017), and most recently co-author (together with Oleg Budnitsky, David Engel and Gennady Estraikh) of Jews in the Soviet Union: A History: War, Conquest, and Catastrophe, 1939–1945 (New York UP, 2022). Her latest book, Jews in the Soviet Union: Post-War Life, Hopes, and Fears, 1945-1953, is in preparation with New York University Press.
Together with artist Psoy Korolenko, Professor Shternshis created and directed the Grammy-nominated Yiddish Glory project, an initiative that brought back to life forgotten Yiddish music written during the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. She has served as a visiting professor at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, at EHEES in Paris, France, Forum for Young Scholars at the University of Wroclaw, Poland and Ashkenazium University in Hungary.
From 2014 to 2021, Professor Shternshis served as the editor-in-chief of East European Jewish Affairs, the leading journal in the field of European Jewish Studies. She received a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship and President’s Impact Award at the University of Toronto, and is currently finishing her book tentatively entitled Last Yiddish Heroes: A Lost and Found Archive of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, about Yiddish music created in Nazi-occupied Ukraine.