Biography
Dr. Michael R. Cohen is the Stuart and Suzanne Grant Professor in the American Jewish Experience at Tulane University. He is chair and Sizeler Professor of the Department of Jewish Studies, and he directs the Stuart and Suzanne Grant Center for the American Jewish Experience. Cohen’s recent monograph, Cotton Capitalists: American Jewish Entrepreneurship in the Reconstruction Era (NYU Press, 2017), was a finalist for the American Jewish Historical Society’s Saul Viener Book Prize. He is also the author of The Birth of Conservative Judaism: Solomon Schechter's Disciples and the Creation of an American Religious Movement (Columbia University Press, 2012), as well as several articles and reviews. He is co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of American Jewish History (Oxford UP), and his third book-length monograph, American Jews: An Economic History, is under contract with NYU Press. Cohen serves as the Association for Jewish Studies’ Division Chair for Modern Jewish History in the Americas, is a member of the Executive Committee of the Academic Council of the American Jewish Historical Society, and he serves as the Senior Historical Advisor for the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience. Cohen earned his Ph.D. from Brandeis University and his A.B. with honors from Brown University.