Aviva Taubenfeld, Director, is Associate Professor of Literature at Purchase College. She received a PhD in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in 2003 and has been on the faculty of Purchase ever since.
A scholar of US literature specializing in immigration and ethnicity, Aviva is author of Rough Writing: Ethnic Authorship in Theodore Roosevelt’s America (NYU, 2008) as well as numerous essays on immigrant history, ethnic and diasporic literatures, translingualism, and national and transnational identity.
In 2009, Aviva was appointed Director of Writing. In this capacity, she supervised the College Writing program, recruited and trained faculty, created and taught writing support programs, and led Purchase’s writing pedagogy internship.
Aviva teaches popular courses, including Childhood in US Literature, the Roaring Twenties, and Immigration and Ethnicity in US Literature. For the past two years she has also been teaching incarcerated women at the Bedford Hills College Program. In 2013, Aviva was awarded the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.
A first generation college graduate, Aviva has experienced both the challenges and joys of academic life. She is dedicated to helping all students find their own path to fulfillment, learning, and success.
