Co-director of the National Endowment for the Humanities 2006 Summer Institute on "Venice, the Jews, and Italian Culture: Historical Eras and Cultural Representations," Prof. Baumgarten currently directs Jewish Studies at UCSC. He has written widely on urban Jewish and Victorian culture. Prof. Baumgarten was the sixth editor (now emeritus) of Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, published by the American Jewish Congress, and served as the founding director of the Dickens Project of the University of California from 1981-1986. His books include City Scriptures: Modern Jewish Writing (1982), Understanding Philip Roth (1990), and Homes and Homelessness in the Victorian Imagination (1990) (co-edited with H. M. Daleski).