Todd Hasak-Lowy is Visiting Professor in Israel Studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago for Fall 2011.  From 2002 to 2011 he was an Assistant and later Associate Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at the University of Florida. He is the author of Here and Now: History, Nationalism, and Realism in Modern Hebrew Fiction (Syracuse University Press, 2008). In addition to his scholarship, Todd writes fiction and has published one short story collection and a novel.