Office: Dale Hall Tower 505B
Email: misha@ou.edu
Education: Ph.D., University of California-Berkeley, 2002
Dr. Misha Klein is Associate Professor of Anthropology, a core affiliate in Women’s and Gender Studies, and an affiliate in the Departments of Judaic Studies and International and Area Studies (Latin American Studies/Brazil). She is the Chair of the Clyde Snow Social Justice Award Committee, sponsored by OU’s Center for Social Justice, a recipient of the 2019 Oklahoma Universal Human Rights Award, and the 2022 Robert D. Lemon Social Justice Faculty Award. She also received the 2021 Regents' Award for Superior Teaching.
Her monograph, Kosher Feijoada and Other Paradoxes of Jewish Life in São Paulo, explores the intersecting meanings of race, class, and belonging for the transnational and multicultural Jewish population in Brazil. Other publications include, “Privileges of the First World: Reflections on Another Life in Brazil” in the volume Detours: Travel and the Ethics of Research in the Global South, and an essay in the Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Jewish Cultures on anthropological contributions to Jewish Studies, both historical and through the “new Jewish ethnography.”
Her current research is an interdisciplinary collaboration with historian Michel Gherman (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) that considers the changing concept of race in Brazil; the circulation of transnational discourses on race, Israel, Zionism, and anti-Semitism; the shifting political landscape in Brazil, including the rise of the evangelical right-wing; the reverberations among leftist activists; and the impact of all of this on Jewish identity and political participation in Brazil. Recent and forthcoming results from this project are published in both English and Portuguese.
Gherman, Michel and Misha Klein, 2024. “De Gaza à Avenida Paulista: repercussões e usos do conflito entre Israel e o Hamas na política brasileira (2023-2024).” Special issue on the War in Gaza and its Repercussions in Brazil. CEBRI-Revista: Brazilian Journal of International Affairs, 3(10): 100–125.
Klein, Misha and Michel Gherman, 2023. “Protest and the End of Community Consensus,” in Jews Across the Americas: 1492-Present, Adriana Brodsky and Laura Leibman, eds., Pp. 481-84. New York: New York University Press.
Klein, Misha and Michel Gherman, 2021. “From Beacon to Siren: The Transformation of Brazil from Racial Utopia to Racist/Antisemitic Dystopia.” Revista Videre (Brazil) 13(28): 65-88.
Gherman, Michel and Misha Klein. 2021. “Aquela Noite: o lugar da Israel imaginária na nova direita brasileira.” Revista Anthropológicas, ano 25, 32(2): 111-140.
Klein, Misha. 2021. “Ruth Behar,” Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, Jewish Women’s Archive: https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/behar-ruth.
Klein, Misha. 2019. “Privileges of the First World: Reflections on Another Life in Brazil,” in Detours: Travel and the Ethics of Research in the Global South, M. Bianet Castellanos, ed. Pp. 21-51. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Gherman, Michel and Misha Klein. 2019. “Entre ‘conversos’ e ‘desconversos’: O caso da influência da Nova Direita Brasileira sobre a comunidade judaica do Rio de Janeiro.” Estudios Sociales del Estado (Argentina) 5(9): 101-123.
Klein, Misha. 2014. “Teaching about Jewishness in the Heartland.” Special issue of Shofar, edited by Alan Levinson, 32(4): 89-104.
Klein, Misha. 2014. “Anthropology,” in The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Jewish Cultures, Laurence Roth and Nadia Valman, eds. Pp. 17-34. London: Routledge.
Klein, Misha, Douglas Vanderbilt, and Kathleen Kendall-Tackett. 2014. “PTSD and Breastfeeding: Let It Flow.” ICAN: Infant, Child, and Adolescent Nutrition 20(10): 211-215.
Klein, Misha. 2012. Kosher Feijoada and Other Paradoxes of Jewish Life in São Paulo. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Klein, Misha. 2010. “Brazil” lemma for the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Norman A. Stillman, Editor. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, vol. 1: 494-498.
