Amy Fedeski
Field & Specialties
Jewish History
International History
Cold War History
Immigration History
Education
University of Virginia, 2018-present: PhD candidate
Dissertation (in progress): “What We Want To Do As Americans”: Jewish Political Activism and United States Refugee Policy, 1965-1989
Comprehensive exams (passed May 2020): Jewish history, International History, Twentieth Century U.S. history
MA thesis: ‘Let My Peoples Go: the American Jewish Committee and the Baghdad and Leningrad show trials, 1969-1970’
University of Cambridge, 2017-2018: MPhil American History
Dissertation: ‘Symbolism and Strategy of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, 1964-1974’
University of Sheffield, 2014-2017: BA History and Politics, First Class.
History dissertation: ‘Religion, Politics and Violence: the Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre in Context’
Politics dissertation: ‘Layout matters: an investigation of the relationship between parliamentary seating arrangement and politics’
Current Research
Analysing the American Jewish Committee’s response to the Egoz sinking, Movement and Migration Graduate Student Conference, Stony Brook University, March 2019.
Refugees, emigres, dissidents: the Carter administration and Jewish migration, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Annual Meeting, June 2019.
‘Considerations of humanity and justice’: Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry and human rights discourse in the 1960s, Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Conference, November 2019.
‘Both in our national character and in our national interest’: Jewish American Non-governmental Organizations and the Refugee Act of 1980, Association for Jewish Studies, December 2020.
Moving Beyond the Cold War? Refugee status in United States law from 1965-1980, Refugees and the (Global) Cold War, Freie Universität Berlin, October 2021 (paper accepted).
Awards & Honors
2021-2022 academic year
- Jefferson Scholars Fellowship
- Dissertation Grant, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Harvard University
- AAJR Graduate Research Fellowship
- Albert Gallatin Graduate Research Fellowship
- Travel Grant, Gerald Ford Presidential Library and Museum
- Honorable Mention, Summer Fellowship, Feinstein Center for American Jewish History, Temple University
- Royal Historical Society Research Grant
- Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, Doctoral Scholarship
2020-2021 academic year
- Jefferson Scholars Fellowship, Finalist
- Jefferson Scholars Foundation Research Prize
- Rachel Winer Manin Interdisciplinary Fellowship in Jewish Studies, University of Virginia
- Dowdy Research Grant, John and JD Dowdy Memorial Congressional Research Endowed Fund, W. R. Poage Legislative Library, Baylor University
- Dissertation Research Grant, Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia
- Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Council Grant, University of Virginia
2019-2020 academic year
- Rachel Winer Manin Interdisciplinary Fellowship in Jewish Studies, University of Virginia
- Summer Dissertation Research Funding, Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia (declined)
- The Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (AHSS) Summer Research Award, University of Virginia
2018-2019 academic year:
- Rachel Winer Manin Interdisciplinary Fellowship in Jewish Studies, University of Virginia
- Double Hoo Award, Office of Undergraduate Research, University of Virginia
- Student Researcher, Religion, Race and Democracy Lab, University of Virginia
- Ruth B. Fein Prize, American Jewish Historical Society
- Summer Language Training Research Grant, Corcoran Department of History, University of Virginia
2017-2018 academic year:
- Sarah Norton Fund for MPhil dissertation research, Department of History, University of Cambridge
Courses Taught
As Teaching Assistant:
WGS3559: Reproductive Justice (Spring 2021)
HIST/MDST2559: Democracy in Danger (January Term 2021)
HIUS3191: American Jewish History: Race, Religion, and Community in the United States (Fall 2020)
HIEU2102: Jewish History II: the Modern Experience (Spring 2020)
GETR2770: Germany, Past and Present (January Term 2020)
HIEU2101: Jewish History I: the Premodern Experience (Fall 2019)
Internet and Popular Press Publications
Culture is not apolitical: the art of Soviet Jewry activism, October 2019
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/dbfea0e72688431ab3a92fc7e887f34d