Mr. Ephraim Light

Professional Background

Ephraim Light received his bachelor’s degree in English from Davidson College. As a John M. Belk Scholar, he studied literary criticism, religious studies, literary translation, and creative writing. He has also served as the editor of Davidson College’s literary magazine and is currently the poetry editor for Verklempt! Magazine of Jewish Arts & Literature. Mr. Light’s past research has focused on Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, Yechiel Shraybman’s Yiddish miniatures, and Dorothy Parker’s Enough Rope, culminating in a digital humanities project that reimagines Dorothy Parker’s poetry for the web.

Fellowship Research

While at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Bella and Murray Ressler Digital Humanities Fellow, Ephraim Light will conduct research on German diaries from 1933 – 1938 to create a visual timeline of shifting emotions. Mr. Light plans to utilize the Museum’s diary collections to uncover how factors like wealth, gender, status in community, location, and religiosity impacted the emotional responses of diarists. This study aims to help diary-readers understand how and why authors made hard choices about when to leave, resist, despair, or find reason to hope.

Residency Period: September 1, 2025-May 31, 2026