Mira Z. Amiras
Professor, Comparative Religious Studies
PhD in Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley

Prof. Amiras founded and has coordinated the Middle East Studies Program since 1987. Her geographical area of expertise is the Middle East and North Africa, and her courses include Magic, Science and Religion; Middle Eastern Traditions; Islam, Politics and the West; Jews, Zionism and the State; Jewish Mysticism, Magic and Folklore.
The author of Development and Disenchantment in Rural Tunisia: The Bourguiba Years (1992), her current research is on Amazigh (Berber) identity and language revitalization in North Africa and in the Amazigh diaspora.

Constantine Danopoulos
Professor, Political Science
PhD University of Missouri, Columbia

Constantine Danopoulos teaches a wide range of courses in international relations and comparative politics. He has received the 2003-04 Professor of the Year from Pi Sigma Alpha of the SJSU Political Science Department and is the recipient of the David Ben Gurion Medal for Academic Leadership from Sde Boker, Israel (1999).
Author of numerous articles on civil-military relations and Warriors and Politicians in Modern Greece (1984).

Victoria Harrison
Jewish Studies Program Coordinator, Lecturer
PhD in English, Rutgers University

Victoria Harrison teaches Holocaust Literature as well as a MUSE freshman seminar focusing on the Tony Kushner play Angels in America. She coordinates the Jewish Studies Program, bringing cohesion and interdisciplinary commitment to the minor and working closely with Hillel and the larger community to extend programming as widely as possible. Author of essays on American and Jewish-American literatures and Elizabeth Bishop's Poetics of Intimacy (Cambridge 1993).

Rina Katzen
Lecturer, Hebrew Language
PhD work in Hebrew at UC Berkeley

One of the founding Jewish Studies Program faculty members, Mrs. Katzen has been teaching Hebrew at SJSU for thirty-five years. She can be credited with keeping the Jewish Studies Program alive, lo these many years.

David Meir-Levi
Lecturer, History Department
MA in Near Eastern Studies, Brandeis University

Director of Research and Education at the Israel Peace Initiative, David Meir-Levi writes extensively and lectures throughout Northern California on the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the 1960s and 70s, he taught Archaeology and Near Eastern History at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at University of Tel Aviv. He has a weekly radio show, “Mid-East Media Watch” at KZSU Stanford, and he co-hosts a monthly TV show on local public cable access TV (channel 27): “Spotlight on the Middle East.”

David Mesher
Professor of English and Humanities
PhD University of Washington

David Mesher's academic scholarship focuses mostly on Jewish writers. He taught for five years at Tel Aviv University and has written several essays in Hebrew for Israeli publications. Earning the 2001-02 College of Humanities Award for Innovative Teaching, Prof. Mesher teaches courses in world literatures, American literature, Holocaust literature; new to his repertoire is a freshman seminar on the history, culture and strategies of board games.

Jonathan Roth
Professor and Chair of History Department
PhD Columbia University

Professor Roth's academic focus is ancient military history, especially that of the Roman Imperial Army, first century Judaism and Christianity from a historical perspective, and race and ethnicity in antiquity. He earned SJSU's Outstanding Professor award for 2005-06. He directs the Burdick Military History Project at SJSU.
Author of numerous articles on ancient military history and the forthcoming Roman Warfare with Cambridge University Press.

Drew Todd
Lecturer, Radio-TV-Film
PhD in Communication and Culture, Indiana University

Prof. Todd has published on a variety of topics within film studies, including dandyism and cinema, crime films, history of film technology, and the poetics and politics of Satyajit Ray's cinema. He is currently in the process of completing a book on what he terms, "Art Deco Hollywood." In addition to teaching Jewish Cinema and other courses at SJSU, he teaches in UC Santa Cruz's Film and Digital Media Department.

Brent Walters
Lecturer, Comparative Religious Studies
MA in Theology, Boston Theological Institute

"Better than an iPod, more meaningful than a boyfriend, more helpful than Wikipedia" (RateMyProfessor.com comment for Mr. Walters). Earning the highest ratings possible from his students, Mr. Walters brings his extensive knowledge and passion to bear on his subject: the Bible and Biblical history. A collector of early Judeo/Christian writings about religion, philosophy, science, medicine, literature, and the arts, his private library--which he began building at age 15--numbers 85,000 pieces.