She received her BA from Yale University and her PhD from Princeton University. Her publications include Rewriting the Jew: Assimilation Narratives in the Russian Empire, which received the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures, the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages’ Best Book in Literary or Cultural Studies award, and a National Jewish Book Award. She is the coeditor, with Lazar Fleishman and Michael Wachtel, of Word, Music, History: A Festschrift for Caryl Emerson and, with Benjamin Nathans, of Culture Front: Representing Jews in Eastern Europe. Her essays have appeared in journals such as Comparative Literature, Prooftexts, Modernity/Modernism, Russian Review, and Slavic Review. In 2007, she received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.