The late Jewish American gay artist Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) changed the face of children’s literature by depicting emotionally isolated, unruly, and ethnically particular protagonists who use fantasy to resist social coercion and self-erasure. In Wild Visionary: Maurice Sendak in Queer Jewish Context (Stanford University Press, 2020), Golan Moskowitz investigates the evolution of Sendak’s artistic vision and its appeal for American, Jewish, and queer audiences. The present talk will draw from that study, illuminating how Sendak’s multiple perspectives as a gay, Holocaust-conscious, American-born son of Yiddish-speaking Polish immigrants informed his life and work. It will also explore how his work interacted dynamically with his cultural surroundings, offering insights into experiences of marginality and creative resilience in twentieth- and twenty-first-century America.

Golan Moskowitz is Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at Tulane University and a core faculty member of Tulane’s Grant Center for the American Jewish Experience. He teaches courses on Jewish gender and sexuality, American popular culture, Holocaust studies, and comics and graphic novels. He is the author of Wild Visionary: Maurice Sendak in Queer Jewish Context (Stanford University Press, 2020) and of several publications on intergenerational memory in post-Holocaust family narratives.