Harvard Book Store welcomes Mark Oppenheimer—journalist, historian, and acclaimed author of five books, including Squirrel Hill and The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia—for a discussion of his new biography, Judy Blume: A Life. He will be joined in conversation by Callie Crossley—host of GBH’s Under the Radar with Callie Crossley.
Mark Oppenheimer has been covering American religion for 25 years. He holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale, and has taught at Stanford, Wesleyan, Wellesley, NYU, Boston College, and Yale, where he was the founding director of the Yale Journalism Initiative. From 2010 to 2016, he wrote the “Beliefs” column for The New York Times, and he has also written for publications including The New Yorker, The Nation, GQ, Slate, and many more. He created Unorthodox, the world’s most popular podcast about Jewish life and culture, with over 7 million downloads. More recently, he hosted an eight-part podcast called Gatecrashers, about the history of Jews and antisemitism at Ivy League schools. He is the author of five books, including The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia and, most recently, Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood. He edits Arc magazine and lives in Connecticut with his wife, four daughters, one son, and one dog.
Callie Crossley hosts Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and shares radio essays each Monday on GBH’s Morning Edition. She also formerly hosted Basic Black, which focused on current events impacting communities of color. Crossley has won numerous awards, including the prestigious Gold Baton DuPont Columbia award, a national Edward R. Murrow Award, a national Emmy and an Oscar nomination for her producer work on “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years.” She was awarded two Harvard Fellowships and serves as on the Board of Trustees of her alma mater, Wellesley College.