Dr Mia Spiro

  • Senior Lecturer in Modern Jewish Culture and Holocaust Studies (Theology & Religious Studies)

telephone: 01413307415
email: Mia.Spiro@glasgow.ac.uk

4 The Square, Theology and Religious Studies, School of Critical Studies, Glasgow, G12 8QQ

Import to contacts

ORCID iDhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-2044-5683

Research interests

Research interests

  • Modern Jewish literature and culture
  • Constructions of ‘the Jew’ in film and literature
  • Jewish migration and urban space
  • Anti-Nazi fiction and modernist aesthetics
  • Holocaust film and fiction, dilemmas of ethical representation
  • Holocaust memoir and history
  • Yiddish avant-garde theatre
  • Jewish women writers
  • Gender and Judaism
  • Modern Zionism and Jewish identity
  • Modern Hebrew and Israeli literature
  • Scottish Jewish history and culture
  • Modern English literature

Biography
I completed my Ph.D. in English at York University in Toronto, Canada, specializing in modern literature with a Graduate Diploma in Jewish Studies and Advanced Hebrew. Since then, I have built a body of multidisciplinary work that explores the relationship between ethics and cultural production through the lens of aesthetic modernism, Jewish history, and the impact of the Holocaust. I am the author of Anti-Nazi Modernism: The Challenges of Resistance in 1930s Fiction (Northwestern University Press, 2013) and have published work and delivered papers on Virginia Woolf, Jewish representation in the interwar period, and on the Jewish Golem myth in modern and contemporary film and literature. My current research, entitled Modern Monsters: Golems, Vampires and the Ghosts of War examines how elements of the supernatural and “border-crossing” figures have been used by modern Jewish writers and artists to grapple with oppression, migration, and antisemitism in the first half of the twentieth-century.
I am also the Glasgow PI on the AHRC funded major research project Jewish Lives, Scottish Spaces which works in collaboration with Dr Hannah Holtschneider at University of Edinburgh and the Scottish Jewish Archives Center.

Before coming to University of Glasgow, from 2011-2013 I was a Visiting Scholar at the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois with a postdoctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). In 2010, I had a Charles H. Revson fellowship at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Research at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Previously, I taught at York University in Toronto and was a research fellow at the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies. Since 2006, I have been an editor and research consultant at the Azrieli Foundation’s series of Canadian Holocaust Survivor Memoirs, and from 1994-1999 worked as a freelance writer in Jerusalem, Israel.
My professional achievements have been recognized by a number of awards, including: the Government of Ontario’s John Charles Polanyi Prize for Literature (one of five awards for excellence given yearly to emerging scholars, 2011); York University’s President Susan Mann Dissertation Scholarship (2009); a SSHRC doctoral award (2006-2008); the Henry and Barbara Bank Award in Jewish Studies (2009); and the Fleischer Award for Jewish Studies (2005).
I am currently Membership Secretary of The Space Between: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945 (http://spacebetweensociety.org/).

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2021 | 2019 | 2017 | 2016 | 2014 | 2013 | 2011 | 2010
Number of items: 17.

2021

Spiro, M. (2021) Crossing in/to Canada: Canada as point of arrival in Holocaust survivor memoirs. In: Koffman, D. (ed.) No Better Place?: Canada, Its Jews, and the Feeling of Home. University of Toronto Press, pp. 117-134. ISBN 9781487504892

2019

Alexander, P. , Holtschneider, H. and Spiro, M. (2019) Special Issue on "Narrative Spaces at the Margins of British Jewish Culture(s)" [Guest Editors]. Shofar, 37(3),

Spiro, M. (2019) Fascism and anti-fascism. In: Smith, J. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to British Literature of the 1930s. Series: Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge University Press, pp. 207-222. ISBN 9781108646345

Goldin, S., Spiro, M. and Ury, S. (Eds.) (2019) Jewish Migration in Modern Times: The Case of Eastern Europe. Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon. ISBN 9780367183684

Alexander, P. , Holtschneider, H. and Spiro, M. (2019) Introduction: Narrative spaces at the margins of British-Jewish culture(s). Shofar, 37(3), pp. 1-18. (doi: 10.5703/shofar.37.3.0001)

Spiro, M. (2019) Exhibiting Jewish culture in Postwar Britain: Glasgow's 1951 Festival of Jewish Arts. Shofar, 37(3), pp. 95-130. (doi: 10.5703/shofar.37.3.0095)

2017

Goldin, S., Spiro, M. and Ury, S. (2017) East European Jewish Affairs, Special Issue: Jewish Migration in Modern Times: The Case of Eastern Europe. [Guest Editors: Semion Goldin, Mia Spiro, and Scott Ury]. East European Jewish Affairs, 47(2/3), pp. 127-339.

2016

Spiro, M. (2016) On Eforgan's Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor. Jewish Film and New Media, 4(2), pp. 207-210. [Book Review]

Spiro, M. (2016) Uncanny survivors and the Nazi beast: Monstrous imagination in See under: Love. Prooftexts, 35(1), pp. 25-36.

2014

Spiro, M. (2014) Beasts of burdened memories: exotic figures in Michal Chabon's holocaust fiction. In: Rousselot, E. (ed.) Exoticizing the Past in Contemporary Neo-Historical Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 160-177. ISBN 9781137375193

2013

Lassner, P. and Spiro, M. (2013) A tale of two cities: Virginia Woolf’s imagined Jewish spaces and London’s East End Jewish culture. Woolf Studies Annual, 19, pp. 58-82.

Spiro, M. (2013) Anti-Nazi Modernism: The Challenges of Resistance in 1930s Fiction. Series: Cultural expressions of World War II. Northwestern University Press: Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 9780810128637

Spiro, M. (2013) Containing the monster: the Golem in Expressionist film and theater. Space Between: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, 9(1), pp. 11-36.

Spiro, M. (2013) Review of: Modern Orthodoxies: Judaic Imaginative Journeys of the Twentieth Century, Lisa Naomi Mulman. Clio: A Journal of Literature, History and the Philosophy of History, 42(3), pp. 41-46. [Book Review]

2011

Spiro, M. (2011) Introduction. In: Abrams, J. and Marx, E. (eds.) Tenuous Threads. Series: Azrieli series of Holocaust survivor memoirs (4). Azrieli Foundation, xiii-xxxi. ISBN 9781897470282

Spiro, M. (2011) Review of Sarah Henstra’s The Counter Memorial Impulse in Twentieth Century Fiction. Textual Practice, 25(3), pp. 622-624. (doi: 10.1080/0950236X.2011.569183)[Book Review]

2010

Spiro, M. (2010) Between public and private acts: Woolf’s anti-Fascist strategies. In: Evans, E. (ed.) Woolf and the City: Selected Papers From the Nineteenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf, Fordham University, New York, New York, 4 - 7 June 2009. Clemson University, pp. 130-135. ISBN 9780984259830

This list was generated on Fri Apr 19 16:54:29 2024 BST.
Jump to: Articles | Books | Book Sections | Book Reviews | Edited Books
Number of items: 17.

Articles

Alexander, P. , Holtschneider, H. and Spiro, M. (2019) Special Issue on "Narrative Spaces at the Margins of British Jewish Culture(s)" [Guest Editors]. Shofar, 37(3),

Alexander, P. , Holtschneider, H. and Spiro, M. (2019) Introduction: Narrative spaces at the margins of British-Jewish culture(s). Shofar, 37(3), pp. 1-18. (doi: 10.5703/shofar.37.3.0001)

Spiro, M. (2019) Exhibiting Jewish culture in Postwar Britain: Glasgow's 1951 Festival of Jewish Arts. Shofar, 37(3), pp. 95-130. (doi: 10.5703/shofar.37.3.0095)

Goldin, S., Spiro, M. and Ury, S. (2017) East European Jewish Affairs, Special Issue: Jewish Migration in Modern Times: The Case of Eastern Europe. [Guest Editors: Semion Goldin, Mia Spiro, and Scott Ury]. East European Jewish Affairs, 47(2/3), pp. 127-339.

Spiro, M. (2016) Uncanny survivors and the Nazi beast: Monstrous imagination in See under: Love. Prooftexts, 35(1), pp. 25-36.

Lassner, P. and Spiro, M. (2013) A tale of two cities: Virginia Woolf’s imagined Jewish spaces and London’s East End Jewish culture. Woolf Studies Annual, 19, pp. 58-82.

Spiro, M. (2013) Containing the monster: the Golem in Expressionist film and theater. Space Between: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945, 9(1), pp. 11-36.

Books

Spiro, M. (2013) Anti-Nazi Modernism: The Challenges of Resistance in 1930s Fiction. Series: Cultural expressions of World War II. Northwestern University Press: Evanston, Illinois. ISBN 9780810128637

Book Sections

Spiro, M. (2021) Crossing in/to Canada: Canada as point of arrival in Holocaust survivor memoirs. In: Koffman, D. (ed.) No Better Place?: Canada, Its Jews, and the Feeling of Home. University of Toronto Press, pp. 117-134. ISBN 9781487504892

Spiro, M. (2019) Fascism and anti-fascism. In: Smith, J. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to British Literature of the 1930s. Series: Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge University Press, pp. 207-222. ISBN 9781108646345

Spiro, M. (2014) Beasts of burdened memories: exotic figures in Michal Chabon's holocaust fiction. In: Rousselot, E. (ed.) Exoticizing the Past in Contemporary Neo-Historical Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 160-177. ISBN 9781137375193

Spiro, M. (2011) Introduction. In: Abrams, J. and Marx, E. (eds.) Tenuous Threads. Series: Azrieli series of Holocaust survivor memoirs (4). Azrieli Foundation, xiii-xxxi. ISBN 9781897470282

Spiro, M. (2010) Between public and private acts: Woolf’s anti-Fascist strategies. In: Evans, E. (ed.) Woolf and the City: Selected Papers From the Nineteenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf, Fordham University, New York, New York, 4 - 7 June 2009. Clemson University, pp. 130-135. ISBN 9780984259830

Book Reviews

Spiro, M. (2016) On Eforgan's Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor. Jewish Film and New Media, 4(2), pp. 207-210. [Book Review]

Spiro, M. (2013) Review of: Modern Orthodoxies: Judaic Imaginative Journeys of the Twentieth Century, Lisa Naomi Mulman. Clio: A Journal of Literature, History and the Philosophy of History, 42(3), pp. 41-46. [Book Review]

Spiro, M. (2011) Review of Sarah Henstra’s The Counter Memorial Impulse in Twentieth Century Fiction. Textual Practice, 25(3), pp. 622-624. (doi: 10.1080/0950236X.2011.569183)[Book Review]

Edited Books

Goldin, S., Spiro, M. and Ury, S. (Eds.) (2019) Jewish Migration in Modern Times: The Case of Eastern Europe. Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon. ISBN 9780367183684

This list was generated on Fri Apr 19 16:54:29 2024 BST.

Grants

2015- 2017-Jewish Lives, Scottish Spaces: Jewish Migration to Scotland, 1880-1950 (AHRC Research Project)
                   (£495,418  AHRC Grant: AH/M006565/1)

2015- 2016. Modern Monsters: Golems, Dybbuks, and the Ghosts of War (Rothschild Hanadiv Research Grant)

2014- 2015. Modern Monsters: Golems, Dybbuks, and the Ghosts of War (The Carnegie Trust)

2014. Jewish Lives, Scottish Spaces: Scoping Project -Scottish History Research Fund, School of Humanities, U of Glasgow.

2011-2013. Re-animating the Golem: created beings and the enigma of modern Jewish aesthetics (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship).

2011 (July-August). Friends of Yiddish, Toronto. Study Grant at Vilnius Institute for Yiddish Language and Culture, University of Vilnius, Lithuania.

2010. Charles H. Revson Foundation. Center for Advanced Holocaust Research, US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Supervision

My specialization is in:

  • Modern and contemporary Jewish literature and culture
  • Antisemitism
  • Holocaust studies
  • Jewish folklore
  • American Jewish literature
  • Gender and Judaism
  • Judaism in practice
  • Interwar literature
  • Modernist English Literature
  • Politics and modern English Literature
  • Fascism/ Anti-Fascism
  • Jewish Migration
  • Scottish Jewish Culture

Please contact me if you wish to discuss postgraduate work in these areas.

  • Chen, Canyu
    Transculturation of Jewish Ghetto in Shanghai: A Study of Identity and Community
  • Stone, Sara
    Examining the blame-shifting culture in the Hebrew Bible

Teaching

The Search for Meaning: Judaism
Mysticism and Spirituality: Jewish Mysticism and the Kabbalah
Modern Judaism: Aspects of Life & Literature
The Holocaust and Ethics of Representation