Dr Jennifer Dowling

DPhil (University of Oxford), MLiberalStds (The Ohio State University), BA (The Ohio State University)
Senior Lecturer


Jennifer Dowling received her BA (cum laude) from The Ohio State University in 1982 in Jewish Studies, (without attending a single football game) with a concentration on Yiddish and Hebrew. After three years in Israel, she returned to Ohio State to pursue an MA in Liberal Studies (Yiddish and Folklore), presenting research on Yiddish riddling techniques. In 1997, she was arrived in Australia as the inaugural lecturer in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture. Dr Dowling was awarded a DPhil from Oxford University in 1998: her thesis focussed on the characterisation of the feminine in eighteenth century Yiddish chapbooks. She has presented conference papers on such diverse topics as golems, the representation of minorities in popular culture, and the morals of women of early modern Yiddish literature. A founding member of Australian Friends of Yiddish, she continues actively to promote Yiddish culture in the community.

• Yiddish in Australia;
• Early modern Yiddish literature;
• Yiddish films;
• Representation of Jews in popular culture;
• On-line learning strategies for Yiddish.

• 'the design and implementation of flexible delivery options for Yiddish language and literary studies';
• 'the re-emergence of chivalric tales among the corpus of 18th century Yiddish street literature';
• DAYC: Digital Archive of Yiddish Culture in Australia: In collaboration with Fisher Library and the Archive of Australian Judaica;
• Yiddishland TimeMap: In collaboration with the Archaeology Lab of the University of Sydney.

• Editor with Marianne Dacy and Suzanne Faigan. Feasts and Fasts: Festschrift in Honour of Alan David Crown (Mandelbaum Publishing, Sydney, 2005).
• 'Mayse fun Shloyme hameylekh: The Hazards of Understanding Animals' in Feasts and Fasts: Festschrift in Honour of Alan David Crown, (Mandelbaum Publishing, Sydney, 2005), pp. .227–43.
• 'The State and Fate of Yiddish in Australian Universities' in Marking Our Difference: Conference Proceedings (University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 2004), pp. 67–74.
• ‘"We are not demons": Homogenising the Heroes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel'. The Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media, Vol 2, 2003.
• Forthcoming
  'Shekhina: From Sacred Texts to Plastic Culture'. Proceedings of Blasphemy and Sacrilege in the Arts, Australian National University, Canberra.
• '"Oy gevalt!": A Peek at the Development of Jewish Superheroines'. Articles from Holy Men in Tights: A Superheroes Conference.

• Yiddish language and culture;
• JCTC6906: Yiddish Literature in Translation;
• JCTC6907: Yiddish Popular Culture.

• Convener and Facilitator for the First and Second Mandelbaum International Conferences in Yiddish Studies (2004, 2005), Mandelbaum House, Sydney, Australia.
• 'Shekhina: From Sacred Texts to Plastic Culture' Blasphemy and Sacrilege in the Arts, Centre for Cross Cultural Research, Australian National University, Canberra. November 2005.
• '"Oy gevalt!": A Peek at the Development of Jewish Superheroines', Holy Men in Tights: A Superheroes Conference, School of Art History, Cinema, Classics and Archaeology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne. June 2005.
• 'The State and Fate of Yiddish in Australian Universities', Our Difference - Languages at Australian and New Zealand Universities, University of Melbourne, Melbourne. October 2003.
• 'Before Frankenstein: The Golem Cycle', Frankenstein's Science: Theories of Human Nature in the 18th and 19th Centuries, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT. April 2003.
• 'Mayse fun Shloyme hameylekh: The Hazards of Understanding Animals', 15th Annual Conference of the Australian Association of Jewish Studies, Sydney, NSW. February 2003.
• '"We are not demons": Homogenising the Heroes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel', The Buffyverse: A Symposium on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Cinema Studies Program, University of Melbourne, Melbourne.

• Founding member and Secretary of Australian Friends of Yiddish;
• Member of Australian Association of Jewish Studies.