Jarrod Tanny is a Canadian-American professor of history and Charles and Hannah Block Distinguished Scholar in Jewish History at the

University of North Carolina, Wilmington The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW or UNC Wilmington) is a public research university in Wilmington, North Carolina. It is part of the University of North Carolina System and enrolls 17,499 undergraduate and graduate students eac ...

. After completing his education through a master's degree in Canada, he came to the United States (US) for a PhD in history at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

. He has made his academic career in the US. Tanny also publishes under the pseudonym A Yid In Dixieland, and maintains an account on Twitter as well as other social media profiles under this name.

Biography

Tanny grew up in

Montreal, Canada Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pea ...

, and graduated from

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

. He earned a master's degree in Russian and East European studies from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

, and a Ph.D. in history from the

in 2008.

Career

Tanny, then a professor of history at

Ohio University Ohio University is a Public university, public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confeder ...

, was hired in 2010 as the inaugural Block Scholar, a professorship named in honour of the parents of former State Senator Frank Block (American politician). His scholarly interests include Jewish humour and Russian Jewish history. Tanny's 2011 book, ''City of Rogues and Schnorrers'', explores Jewish life in 19th-century

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

(then part of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

), a

free port Free economic zones (FEZ), free economic territories (FETs) or free zones (FZ) are a class of special economic zone (SEZ) designated by the trade and commerce administrations of various countries. The term is used to designate areas in which com ...

and

boomtown A boomtown is a community that undergoes sudden and rapid population and economic growth, or that is started from scratch. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although ...

with a reputation for attracting "gangsters and swindlers..." along with ambitious men and women, some of whom attained great wealth. The ''

Slavic and East European Journal The ''Slavic and East European Journal'' (SEEJ) is a major peer-reviewed academic journal publishing original research and review essays in the areas of Slavic and East European languages, literatures, cultures, linguistics, methodology and peda ...

'', described ''City of Rogues and Schnorrers'' as, "serious and funny, informative and amusing, witty and well written."Katz, Michael R. ''The Slavic and East European Journal,'' vol. 56, no. 4, 2012, pp. 645–646. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24392629. Reviewer Anna Shternshis cited Tanny's unusual ability to draw on both Russian and Yiddish sources, which she considers to be an important contribution in a field where scholarship has often been confined to a single language.Anna Shternshis, ''Slavic Review,'' vol. 72, no. 4, 2013, pp. 913–914. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5612/slavicreview.72.4.0913.

Publications

* ''City of Rogues and Schnorrers: Russia's Jews and the Myth of Old Odessa''. (Indiana University Press, 2011) * "I Survived Teaching Jewish Studies in North Carolina" (Forward, March 22, 2015). Also published under the pseudonym Yid In Dixieland as "Bible Belt Blues: Tales of a Professional Canadian Jew in the American Deep South" (Shtetl Montreal, 2011). * ''How To Boycott Israel For Dummies - New Campus Apartheid Edition.'' (Self-published) * ''Jewish + Woke = Joke.'' (Self-published) * The Gospel of Sarsour. (Self-published)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanny, Jarrod 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers American people of Canadian descent McGill University alumni University of Toronto alumni University of California alumni University of North Carolina faculty American male non-fiction writers