Mendel Kranz is the Samuel W. and Goldye Marian Spain Postdoctoral Fellow in Jewish Studies at Rice University. He received his Ph.D. in 2023 from the University of Chicago of Divinity School. His work sits at the intersection of Modern Jewish History and Thought, Postcolonial Studies, Religious Studies, and Critical Theory.
He is currently completing a book manuscript entitled “The Postcolonial Jewish Question: Colonialism, Anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia in Postwar France,” which interrogates how Jewish marginalization and anti-Semitism intersected with the histories of colonialism and Islamophobia, beginning with the struggles for decolonization in the 1950s through the end of the century.
His research has appeared in Levinas Studies and Hebrew Studies, and he is a recipient of multiple grants and awards, including the Excellence in Teaching Award (University of Chicago Divinity School), the Northwestern University Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship, and the Georges Lurcy Charitable and Educational Trust Fellowship for research in France.