Bio

Professor Kelman's research focuses on the forms and practices of religious knowledge transmission. He holds a specific research interest in American Jewry.

He is the author of Shout to the Lord: Making Worship Music in Evangelical America (NYU 2018) and Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio (California, 2009). He is also the co-editor (with Jon Levisohn) of Beyond Jewish Identity (2019: Academic Studies Press), the editor of Is Diss a System?: A Milt Gross Comic Reader (NYU, 2010), co-author of Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary (Alban Institute, 2011). Together with research partners at Stanford and elsewhere, he maintains an active research agenda and publishes regularly in venues both scholarly and popular.

Academic Appointments

Administrative Appointments

  • Director, Undergraduate Honors in Education Thesis Program (2019 - Present)
  • Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University (2012 - Present)
  • Associate Director, American Religions in a Global Context (2019 - Present)
  • Director, BJPA@Stanford (2019 - Present)
  • Director, Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies (2012 - Present)
  • Affiliate, Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (2012 - Present)
  • Affiliate, American Studies Program (2012 - Present)
  • Core Faculty, Center for Jewish Studies (2012 - Present)
  • Interim Director, Taube Center for Jewish Studies (2017 - 2018)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

  • Editor, Jewish Social Studies (2020 - Present)
  • Chair, Network for Research in Jewish Education (2019 - Present)
  • Board Member, Network for Research in Jewish Education (2016 - 2019)
  • Board Member, Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry (2015 - 2019)
  • Board Member, Association for Jewish Studies (2015 - 2018)
  • Associate Professor of American Studies, UC Davis (2009 - 2011)
  • Assistant Professor of American Studies, UC Davis (2006 - 2009)
  • Scholar-in-Residence, American Jewish Historical Society (2005 - 2006)
  • Historian, National Museum of American Jewish History (2003 - 2005)

Program Affiliations

  • American Studies

Professional Education

  • BA, UC Santa Cruz, Sociology (1994)
  • PhD, New York University, American Studies (2003)

Contact

  • Academic
    aykelman@stanford.edu
    University - Faculty Department: Graduate School of Education Position: Assoc Professor
    • School of Education
    • 485 Lasuen Mall
    • Stanford,  California  94305 

Additional Info

  • Mail Code: 3096

Links

Research Interests

  • Religion
  • Sociology

Current Research and Scholarly Interests

Professor Kelman's research focuses on the forms and practices of religious knowledge transmission. His work emerges at the intersection of sociocultural learning theory and scholarly/critical studies of religion. Methodologically, he draws on social scientific and historical approaches to the study of these phenomena.

His interests have drawn him to research phenomena as diverse as Yiddish radio, Evangelical worship music, Jewish online learning, release time programs, religious dictionaries, Jewish identity, ritual, Google algorithms about religion, Jewish students and antisemitism, citational research networks, campus chaplaincy, and the educational dimensions of the ongoing tension between church, state, and schooling. All of these organize around the question of how religious knowledge is constructed, encoded, transmitted, understood, and practiced.

At present, he as work on a handful of projects ranging from a synthetic work about Jewish education, the study of religious education in the post-war period, studies of Google's algorithmic definitions of religion, and intersections between AI and religion.

2022-23 Courses

Stanford Advisees

All Publications

  • From Aesthetics to Experience: How Changing Conceptions of Prayer Changed the Sound of Jewish Worship RELIGION AND AMERICAN CULTURE-A JOURNAL OF INTERPRETATION Kelman, A. Y., Lockwood, J. 2020; 30 (1): 26–62

    View details for DOI 10.1017/rac.2020.4

    View details for Web of Science ID 000535284400002

  • Forum RELIGION AND AMERICAN CULTURE-A JOURNAL OF INTERPRETATION Holscher, K., Ebel, J., Riess, J., Edmonds, J., Heo, A., Kelman, A. Y. 2019; 29 (1): 1–35

    View details for Web of Science ID 000460792900001

  • Learning and Learning about Religious Knowledge RELIGIOUS EDUCATION Kelman, A. Y. 2019

    View details for DOI 10.1080/00344087.2019.1631952

    View details for Web of Science ID 000479428100001

  • What We Talk About When We Talk About Research in Jewish Education: How References Produce a Field JOURNAL OF JEWISH EDUCATION Kelman, A. Y., Marom, M., Keep, B. 2019; 85 (3): 240–67

    View details for DOI 10.1080/15244113.2019.1639115

    View details for Web of Science ID 000487231300002

  • Beyond Jewish Identity Kelman, A. Y. edited by Levisohn, J. A. Academic Studies Press. 2019
  • Shout to the Lord: Making Worship Music in Evangelical America Kelman, A. Y. New York University Press. 2018
  • Traditional Judaism: The Conceptualization of Jewishness in the Lives of American Jewish Post-Boomers JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES Kelman, A. Y., Belzer, T., Horwitz, I., Hassenfeld, Z., Williams, M. 2017; 23 (1): 134–67

    View details for DOI 10.2979/jewisocistud.23.1.05

    View details for Web of Science ID 000412870600005

  • Learning History Through Culture The Krakow Jewish Festival TEACHING AND LEARNING THE DIFFICULT PAST: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES Kelman, A. Y., Gross, M. H., Terra, L. 2019: 274–89

    View details for Web of Science ID 000487736300019

  • Introduction, The Jewish 1968 and its Legacies AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY Kelman, A. Y., Michels, T., Prell, R. 2018; 102 (1): 1–4

    View details for DOI 10.1353/ajh.2018.0001

    View details for Web of Science ID 000425604700001

  • The Political Economy of Day Schools American Jewish History Kelman, A. Y., Bordelon, J. 2018; 102 (1): 59-84
  • Shout to the Lord: Making Worship Music in Evangelical America Kelman, A. Y. NYU Press. 2018
  • The Political Economy of Day Schools AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY Kelman, A. Y., Bordelon, J. 2018; 102 (1): 59–84

    View details for DOI 10.1353/ajh.2018.0004

    View details for Web of Science ID 000425604700004

  • Golem: Modern Wars and Their Monsters (Book Review) JOURNAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY Book Review Authored by: Kelman, A. Y. 2017; 104 (2): 527–28

    View details for DOI 10.1093/jahist/jax252

    View details for Web of Science ID 000417193600081

  • Encountering the past in the present: An exploratory study of educational heritage tourism International Review of Education Gross, M. H., Kelman, A. Y. 2017; 63 (1): 51-70
  • Traditional Judaism: The Conceptualization of Jewishness in the Lives of American Jewish Post-Boomers Jewish Social Studies Kelman, A. Y., Belzer, T., Horwitz, I., Hassenfeld, Z., Williams, M. 2017; 23 (1): 134-167
  • HOW COME BOYS GET TO KEEP THEIR NOSES (Book Review) SHOFAR-AN INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES Book Review Authored by: Kelman, A. Y. 2016; 35 (1): 119–20

    View details for DOI 10.1353/sho.2016.0039

    View details for Web of Science ID 000393335400006

  • Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel (Book Review) MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL Book Review Authored by: Kelman, A. Y. 2016; 70 (4): 682–83

    View details for Web of Science ID 000386540900018

  • Learning Across Church and State: Student Experience of a Released Time Program RELIGIOUS EDUCATION Kelman, A. Y., Wolford, Z. 2016; 111 (1): 49-74

    View details for DOI 10.1080/00344087.2016.1124012

    View details for Web of Science ID 000370675100003

  • Spirits Rejoice!: Jazz and American Religion. (Book Review) JOURNAL OF POPULAR MUSIC STUDIES Book Review Authored by: Kelman, A. Y. 2015; 27 (4): 530–32

    View details for DOI 10.1111/jpms.12156

    View details for Web of Science ID 000366578500013

  • The Present in Future Tense JOURNAL OF JEWISH EDUCATION Kelman, A. Y. 2012; 78 (4): 302–4

    View details for DOI 10.1080/15244113.2012.732764

    View details for Web of Science ID 000217526100005