Speakers

Plenary Speakers

Jeremy Dauber is the Atran Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture and, for a decade, directed the Institute of Israel and Jewish Studies at Columbia University. He is the author of six books: Antonio’s Devils: Writers of the Jewish Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature (Stanford University Press, 2004); In the Demon’s Bedroom: Yiddish Literature and the Early Modern (Yale University Press; 2010); The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem (Schocken Books, 2013); Jewish Comedy: A Serious History ( W.W. Norton, 2017); American Comics: A History (W.W. Norton: 2021), and, now, Mel Brooks: Disobedient Jew (Yale University Press: 2023). His seventh book, American Scary: A History of Horror From Salem To Stephen King and Beyond, will be published next week by Algonquin. He frequently lectures on topics related to Jewish literature, history, humor, and popular culture at the 92nd St Y and other venues throughout the United States.

 

Anita Houck is Professor of Religious Studies and Theology at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, where she holds the Joyce McMahon Hank Aquinas Chair in Catholic Theology. She is also an affiliated faculty member with the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion at the University of Notre Dame. She received her Ed.M. from Harvard Graduate School of Education and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Her articles and talks cover a range of topics, especially religion and humor, vocation, and pedagogy; and she is co-editor, with Mary Doak, of Translating Religion (Orbis, 2013).

 

 

 

Growing up in Texas as the son of Indian immigrants and a self-described “turban-wearing, brown-skinned, beard-loving Sikh,” Simran Jeet Singh constantly confronted racism, bullying, and ethnic slurs. But, where others may have grown bitter or angry, he looked to the lessons of Sikh teachings he grew up with to seek out the good in every situation and find positive ways to direct his energy. These tenets of love and service to others empowered him to forge a life of connection and a commitment to justice that catapulted him to the national stage in the areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

In The Light We Give and his moving keynote programs, Dr. Singh shows how Sikh wisdom can transform lives, and enlightens audiences on how to integrate ethical living with personal happiness. He helps people reach beyond their comfort zones to practice a deeper form of living, proving that everyone can learn the insights and skills that have led him to find this crucial balance of compassion, activism, and peace. Dr. Singh’s vision of hope shows how each of us can turn away from fear, uncertainty, and anger to move toward renewal and positive change.

Recognized among TIME Magazine’s sixteen people fighting for a more equal America, Dr. Simran Jeet Singh’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Harvard Business Review, CNN, and Religion News Service, where he is a regular monthly columnist. He has been featured on Good Morning America, NBC News, ABC News, and the On Being podcast. A prolific speaker, he has brought his powerful approach to building a purposeful, rewarding, and happy life to organizations ranging from Google to the Harvard Divinity School to the White House.

Singh is also the author of Fauja Singh Keeps Going, a bestselling children’s picture book based on the true story of Fauja Singh, who broke world records to become the first one-hundred-year-old to run a marathon. In it, Dr. Simran Jeet Singh shares valuable lessons on the source of the marathoner’s grit, determination to overcome obstacles, and commitment to positive representation of the Sikh community. Fauja Singh Keeps Going was named an NPR Best Book of 2020, a  New York Public Library Best Book of 2020, and a Chicago Public Library Best Informational Book for Younger Readers of 2020, among other accolades.

Currently, Dr. Simran Jeet Singh is Executive Director of the Aspen Institute’s Program on Religion and Society, a Soros Equality Fellow with the Open Society Foundations, a Senior Adviser on Equity and Inclusion for YSC Consulting, and a Visiting Professor at Union Seminary. He was recently named a 2022 Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity. He lives with his family in New York City.

BYU Faculty Participants

Will Carr is Assistant Professor of Spanish Translation at Brigham Young University. He specializes in humor under authoritarian regimes in Spain.

 

 

 

 

 

Corry Cropper is Professor of French at Brigham Young University. His work focuses on nineteenth-century French literature and culture.

 

 

 

 

 

Chris Flood is an associate professor of French at Brigham Young University. His research focuses on comedy, satire, and polemics in times of societal crisis and religious conflict. Among his recent publications are studies of polemical literature in the lead-up to the Wars of Religion, and a commented translation of collected nineteenth-century, French musical comedies about Mormons entitled: Mormons in Paris: Polygamy on the French Stage, 1874-1892. He is currently leading a group of undergraduate research assistants in a digital humanities project focused on sixteenth-century polemical pamphlets.

 

 

 

Anna-Lisa Halling received her PhD from Vanderbilt University and joined the Spanish and Portuguese Department in 2016. She teaches courses on Portuguese literature and culture, including Camões, Gil Vicente, Women Writers, and Luso-Brazilian Theatre Production. Her research centers on early modern Iberian literature, particularly texts by secular and religious women, and encompasses theatre criticism, spatial theory, and feminist theory. Anna-Lisa has published on the works of Soror Maria do Céu, Soror Violante do Céu, and Dona Joanna Theodora de Souza, among others. She also co-founded the More than Muses online database (morethanmuses.byu.edu) with Valerie Hegstrom and Jeremy Browne. Her current research project is a co-authored (also with Valerie Hegstrom) book-length study of early modern convent drama in Spain and Portugal.

 

 

Valerie Hegstrom is Professor Emerita of Spanish Literature at Brigham Young University, where she served as Coordinator of Global Women’s Studies from 2011-2024. She holds a BA in English and an MA in comparative literature from BYU, and an MA and PhD in Spanish literature from the University of Kansas. Her published articles and book chapters focus on early modern Spanish theater and the recovery of works by women writers. Her editions of plays by women—María de Zayas’s La traición en la amistad (Bucknell UP) and Ângela de Azevedo’s El muerto disimulado (Liverpool UP)—led to multiple productions by theater companies in the U.S. and Spain. The Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender named El muerto disimulado “The Best Translated Edition of a Work on Women and Gender Published in 2018.” Along with Anna-Lisa Halling and Jeremy Browne, Valerie created and edits the website More Than Muses (morethanmuses.byu.edu), a digital library of texts by Iberian women from the Middle Ages through the nineteenth century. She is president elect of the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater and a founding mother of the Grupo de Estudios sobre la Mujer en España y las Américas.

Jared Ludlow has been teaching in the Ancient Scripture Department at BYU since 2006. Previous to that, he spent six years teaching Religion and History at BYU Hawaii, and served the last two years as Chair of the History Department. Jared received his Bachelor’s degree from BYU in Near Eastern Studies, his Master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley in Biblical Hebrew, and his PhD in Near Eastern Religions from UC-Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union. His primary research interests are in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. His dissertation was published as a book, Abraham Meets Death: Narrative Humor in the Testament of Abraham, by Sheffield Academic Press. He has also produced a World History textbook, Revealing World History to 1500, and a book related to the Apocrypha, Exploring the Apocrypha from a Latter-day Saint Perspective.

Jared has regularly presented papers at the Society of Biblical Literature Meetings and has participated in Sperry and similar symposia at BYU. He enjoys teaching Bible courses, Book of Mormon, World Religions, and World History. Jared served a Latter-day Saint mission to Campinas Brazil, and has also lived in Germany and Israel, teaching twice at the BYU Jerusalem Center 2011-2012, 2016-2017. He likes sports, hiking, snorkeling, and traveling. He is married to Margaret (Nelson) and they have five children: Jared Jr., Joshua, Joseph, Marissa, and Melia.

Jason A. Kerr grew up in Sierra Vista, AZ. He attended Arizona State University before pursuing graduate studies at Boston College and moving to Chapel Hill, NC to write his dissertation. He has taught at BYU since 2013.

 

 

 

 

 

Richard was raised in Los Angeles, California, and served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Korea Pusan Mission from 1988 to 1990. He double majored in Asian Studies and Korean at BYU, graduating in 1993, and later earned a Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures (with emphasis on Korean and Chinese Buddhism and early Korean History) at UCLA in 2001. He was a Fulbright Senior Researcher at Dongguk University in Korea from 2007 to 2008, He taught in the History Department at BYU-Hawaii from 2008 to 2018. His wife of 17 years, Younghee Yeon McBride, passed away from pancreatic cancer in February 2018. They are the parents of two sons, David and Sean. Prof. McBride began teaching at BYU in the fall 2018 semester.

 

 

 

Rex P. Nielson is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Director of the BYU Humanities Center. His interests include literary and cultural studies, especially in relation to the Portuguese-speaking world. He has taught a variety of courses on Luso-Afro-Brazilian literature and culture, as well as interdisciplinary courses for Latin American Studies, Africana Studies, Global Women’s Studies, and the BYU Honors Program. His research focuses on (1) environmental humanities in Brazil and the global south, (2) race and gender in Luso-Brazilian culture, (3) language and literature pedagogy, and (4) translation studies. Additionally, he has served in various professional organizations, including as President of the American Portuguese Studies Association (APSA) (2019–2020). Rex and his wife, Natalie, an adjunct professor in the Department of Comparative Arts and Letters, live in Provo and are the proud parents of five children.

 

Kerry Soper studied art as an undergraduate at Utah State University. He then attended Emory University where he pursued an MA and PhD in American Studies. His primary research interests include comic strips, comedy, satire, American art history, and popular film.  He has published three books with The University Press of Mississippi: Garry Trudeau: The Aesthetics of Satire; We Go Pogo: Walt Kelly, Politics and American Satire, and Gary Larson and The Far Side.  In addition to teaching in the Interdisciplinary Humanities and American Studies programs at BYU, he paints landscapes (www.kerrysoper.squarespace.com) and attempts to bridge the gap between theory and practice by contributing humor columns to Utah Life magazine and occasionally publishing cartoons and short satiric pieces in The Chronicle of Higher Education and other venues.