Meet Lecturer Joel Saxe!
By Gabby Grondalski & Grace Keller
Joel Saxe is a Lecturer in the Communication Department and has been teaching at UMass for 14 years. Before coming to UMass, Joel was already familiar with the Pioneer Valley.
Joel was born in Miami, Florida, and raised in New York. Upon entering college in 1976, he enrolled in Hampshire College to pursue a Bachelor’s in Documentary Film and Video. After enrolling at Hampshire, Joel became an activist. One campaign he was a part of was the Anti-Apartheid Divestment Movement. “There was a movement in the ‘70s into the ‘80s against U.S. investments in the South African Apartheid regime. I left school to do that for several years.” In 1983, Joel returned to Hampshire College to complete the last two years of his degree. Several years later, he returned to the Pioneer Valley and pursued both his Master’s and Ph.D. in Communication at UMass.
While in graduate school, Joel worked at Smith College in their media center, working on multiple types of media production. A large portion of his work revolved around Yiddish culture and Jewish radicalism in New York and South Florida, specifically in South Beach. Joel’s research and media production revolved around this topic, out of interest and also a personal connection. “That’s where I grew up. That’s my hometown. I was born in New York but raised in Miami. We lived in Miami Beach when I was younger, and my grandfather lived in that neighborhood … I would spend time with him on the weekends, so I saw this thriving Yiddish Community.” For his dissertation, Joel wrote about an ethnography village culture in Miami Beach.
During his time producing media, Joel worked on many films surrounding Yiddish Culture in New York and in Miami. “When I was shooting this material, I intended to create a whole documentary series and the initial term Jewish radicalism in Miami and New York. I have this whole archive.” One of his documentaries is called Yiddish Folk Singers on Miami Beach. To date, Joel recognizes his archiving and documenting as one of his greatest accomplishments.
While Joel worked towards his Ph.D., he worked at Greenfield Community College in their art department and taught video production, media literacy, and social justice education in local schools. For some time, he also worked as an art educator for the Department of Youth Services. “I was an art educator and resident putting artists in the department of youth services lockup facilities for primarily young men. From the western part of the state to Worcester, I would go in to teach media literacy, media production, and media criticism. I also developed a curriculum with educators who were in those facilities, and that was something I did for several years.” After completing his Ph.D., Joel worked at Springfield College in their school of Human Services before coming to UMass to teach.
At UMass, Joel instructs three courses: Youth, Democracy and the Entertainment Industry, Revisiting the New Deal, and a first-year seminar called Radical America. “They’re all great … I like them all. I feel lucky that all of them are very relevant to the issues going on in our time.” Outside of his classes and research, Joel has been a part of the Mass Teachers Association and statewide teachers’ Union. Besides being a member of the Union, he is also a co-chair for the Task Force on Race Committee. While involved with this committee, he has worked on a range of projects.A recent project Joel assisted with was MTA’s Mapping Racism in Education workshop which occurred back in December. “The MTA is the largest Union in the state, over 120,000 members in 400 locals. It’s a workshop I helped develop with other members of the Task Force on Race. We have done it several times across the state for K-12-16 educators.” For twelve years, Joel also produced a weekly radio show called Bread and Roses radio. It aired on Valley Free Radio and focused on creating a fair economy and social jus