Bio
Jaimie Luria received her PhD in Anthropology from Cornell University, where she was also affiliated with the Jewish Studies Program and Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies (CIAMS). Her doctoral research centered on a multi-sited ethnographic study of Jewish heritage sites in Iberia and Israel-Palestine. For her dissertation, “Troubled Waters: Jewish Heritage and the Spectral Mikveh,” Jaimie analyzed the religious and cultural significance of historic immersion pools (Hebrew, miqva’ot) as cited in the archaeological record, as well as Jewish liturgical and archival media, and their contemporary politicization as sites of national memory. Her research interests include the study of water as a cultural resource with both ritual and ecological significance; discourses of embodiment vis-à-vis Jewish ablution practices from antiquity to the present; and heritage conservation in contested political landscapes more broadly.
Jaimie’s Master’s thesis brought together interdisciplinary discourses in museum anthropology, Native North American studies, and religion, through which she analyzed early ethnographic documentation of Diné/Navajo medicine and material culture, and the dangers of mishandling the ephemeral imagery depicted in sacred sandpainting practices (known as iikááh or “sings”). She is currently working on several projects, including historic cemetery preservation consultation for the Instituto de Estudios Judíos de Barcelona; publishing various articles with Museum Worlds/Berghahn Journals, Oxford University Press, and Routledge Resources Online-The Renaissance World; authoring a chapter contribution on the topic of Jewish ritual baths and “salvage poetics” to a forthcoming edited volume (eds. Sheila Jelen and Judith Lin, University of Chicago).
Jaimie will also present her research to the Italian Association for Urban History (AISU) in Palermo, Sicily and the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) in Washington, D.C. Jaimie’s ethnographic research and museum practice center on collaborative and creative approaches to placemaking and storytelling.
Areas of Expertise
Folklore, heritage studies, historic cemetery preservation (Barcelona; Tucson) and repatriation (NAGPRA), Jewish studies, memory, museums, Native North American studies
Degrees
2025 Ph.D., Anthropology, Cornell University, granted May 25, 2025- Dissertation: “Troubled Waters: Jewish Heritage and the Spectral Mikveh,” defended March 24, 2025
- Committee: Jonathan Boyarin (Chair), Lauren Monroe, Cara Rock-Singer, Adam Smith
2022 M.A., Anthropology, Cornell University
2017 Graduate Certificate in Heritage Conservation, College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, University of Arizona
2015 M.A., Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture, Bard Graduate Center
2012 B.A., Art History and Museum Studies, Sarah Lawrence College