Lori Laster

Lori Ann Laster is a PhD Candidate in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Minnesota. Her scholarly path into Jewish studies began in theater, where she specialized in dramaturgy and the history of antisemitic stereotypes on the stage: work that produced "Anatomy of a Stereotype" and earned her a Jerome Foundation Fellowship. She now applies Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) across fields ranging from social-justice mathematics education to learning technologies. Her dissertation, A Question of Faith: Critical Examinations of Religious Literacy in Education, examines religious and antisemitism literacy in post-secondary education, looking at both children's literature representations and how teachers' faith-based beliefs shape their classroom practice; this work speaks directly to the collaborative's mission: it advocates for classroom approaches that make room for Jewish students and other religious minorities rather than erasing them. Her research has been supported by the P.E.O. Scholar Award, an Academic Engagement Network microgrant for teaching antisemitism, and multiple University of Minnesota Center for Jewish Studies fellowships, including the Jerome L. Joss and the Theresa and Nathan Berman fellowships.