Stuart Z. Charmé, Professor of Religion (B.A., Columbia University; M.A., Ph.D., University of Chicago)  Professor Charmé, an internationally recognized expert on the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, published two books, Meaning and Myth in the Study of Lives: A Sartrean Approach and Vulgarity and Authenticity: Dimensions of Otherness in the World of Sartre, and many articles on existentialism. He is the recipient of fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 1993-94 he served as Resident Director of the Rutgers Study Abroad Program in Israel.

Professor Charmé is a specialist in the psychology of religion and has a particular interest in the religious ideas of children. For over 10 years, Dr. Charmé has been interviewing Jewish children and adolescents about their religious ideas and their feelings about various Jewish issues. In particular, he has focused on questions of gender in children’s understanding of Jewish history and practice. Dr. Charmé is available to speak about issues of gender and Jewish identity in children and adolescents.

Click here for abstracts of Dr. Charme's research and/or summaries of his CCCS Seminar Series' presentations. >>> To learn more about his film, "Kotel: Jewish Teens on Gender and Tradition," visit his website: http://crab.rutgers.edu/~scharme/kotel.htm

Professor Charmé's interest in the religious ideas of children focuses on gender differences in children's understanding of biblical stories such Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden and various religious rituals. He is currently working on a book dealing with the development of religious and ethnic identity in Jewish children and adolescents.

He produced a short film, titled "Kotel: Jewish Teens on Gender and Tradition" on the Western Wall (the Kotel) in Jerusalem is the most sacred Jewish site in the world, representing what most Jews consider a link to the authentic traditions of their past. Yet it is also a place where Orthodox rules for separating men and women are the norm. This film explores how a new generation of American Jews make sense of the practices at the Kotel in light of the dramatic changes in the roles for Jewish women in recent years.
For more information, visit http://crab.rutgers.edu/~scharme/kotel.htm

"The Gender Question and the Study of Jewish Children,"  Religious Education , Winter 2005-6.

"Varieties of Authenticity and Jewish Identity" Jewish Social Studies, vol. 6, no. 2, March 2000.

"Alterity, Authenticity, and Jewish Identity," Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, vol. 16, no. 3, Spring 1998, pp. 42-62.

"The Story of Adam and Eve and the Development of Children's Gender Identity," Journal for Feminist Studies of Religion, vol. 13, no. 2, Fall 1997, pp. 27-44.

"Biblical Sexism and the Gender Identity of Children," in The Power of Gender in Religion, edited by Georgie A. Weatherby and Susan A. Farrell (New York: McGraw Hill Co., Inc., 1996), pp. 15-26.

"Fifty Years After Sartre: The Question of Authentic Jewish Identity,"in Memory, History, and Critique: European Identity at the Millennium (Proceedings of the 6th International Society for the Study of European Ideas Conference at the University for Humanist Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands), edited by Frank Brinkhuis and Sascha Talmor, August 1996.

"The Varieties of Modern and Postmodern Jewish Identity," Religious Studies Review, July 1996, pp. 215-222.

"Authenticity, Multiculturalism, and the Jewish Situation," Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, vol. 25, no. 2 (May 1994), pp. 183-188.

Karma Foundation, 2003-2004
grant for film "Kotel: Jewish teens on Gender and Tradition

Center for the Study of Children and Childhood, 2000-2001
"The Emerging Jewish Identities of Childhood and Adolescence"

Rutgers Research Council Grant, 1996-97
"Religion and Gender Identity of Children"

National Endowment for the Humanities, 1995-96
Fellowship for College Teachers
("Religious Dimensions of Jean-Paul Sartre")

Coolidge Research Colloquium Fellowship, 1985
Associates for Religion and Intellectual Life
("The 'Jews for Jesus' Heresy")