Ranen Omer-Sherman lived in a desert kibbutz where he worked in agriculture and as a guide to the Sinai and Negev deserts for thirteen years. He is currently Professor of English and Jewish Studies at the University of Miami where he teaches courses in Middle-Eastern literature (with particular emphasis on Israeli and Palestinian portrayals of the Other) and ethnic American literature. His books include "Diaspora and Zionism in Jewish American Literature," "Israel in Exile: Jewish Writing and the Desert," and the co-edited volumes "The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches" and "Narratives of Dissent: War in Contemporary Israeli Arts & Culture." Ranen's newest book, titled "Imagining Kibbutz: Visions of Utopia in Literature & Film," is due out next year. His book reviews have appeared in the "Forward" and the "Miami Herald" and he is the author of numerous academic essays on poets and writers such as Yehuda Amichai, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, T.S. Eliot, Allegra Goodman, David Grossman, Tony Kushner, Horace Kallen, Emma Lazarus, Amos Oz, Dan Pagis, Philip Roth, Charles Reznikoff, Marie Syrkin, A.B. Yehoshua, and Simone Zelitch.