Jarrod Tanny is a Canadian American professor of history and Charles and Hannah Block Distinguished Scholar in Jewish History at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. [1] After completing his education through a master's degree in Canada, he came to the United States for a PhD in history at the University of California, Berkeley.
Tanny grew up in Montreal, Canada, and graduated from McGill University. He earned a master's degree in Russian and East European studies from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. in history from the University of California at Berkeley in 2008. [2]
Tanny, then a professor of history at Ohio University, was hired in 2010 as the inaugural Block Scholar, a professorship named in honour of the parents of former State Senator Frank Block (American politician). [3] His scholarly interests include Jewish humour and Russian Jewish history. [4] [2]
Tanny's 2011 book, City of Rogues and Schnorrers, explores Jewish life in 19th-century Odesa, Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire), a free port and boomtown with a reputation for attracting "gangsters and swindlers..." along with ambitious men and women, some of whom attained great wealth. [5] [6]
The Slavic and East European Journal , described City of Rogues and Schnorrers as, "serious and funny, informative and amusing, witty and well written." [7] Reviewer Anna Shternshis cited Tanny's unusual ability to draw on both Russian and Yiddish sources, which she considers to be an important contribution in a field where scholarship has often been confined to a single language. [8]