Andrew R. Heinze

Andrew R. Heinze is an author, journalist, playwright, and scholar of American History.

Heinze grew up in Matawan, New Jersey. At age fourteen, he won a scholarship to Blair Academy in Warren County, where he graduated in 1973. He subsequently won a Bodman Foundation scholarship that enabled him to attend Amherst College, where he received his B.A. in 1977, graduating Magna Cum Laude. He attended graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, receiving his M.A. in 1980 and his Ph.D. in 1987 in American History. He has taught U.S. History at a number of schools, including San Jose State University, the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, Berkeley. From 1993-2006 he was a tenured Professor of American History at the University of San Francisco, where he was also Director of the Swig Judaic Studies Program.

Heinze's book Adapting to Abundance (1990) was the first full-length study of the impact of American consumer culture on an immigrant group; it established his reputation as part of a scholarly vanguard that produced the first histories of mass consumption in Europe and America. To date, it has been referenced in hundreds of books, articles, and syllabi around the world.^[1][2][3] Heinze's book, Jews and the American Soul: Human Nature in the Twentieth Century (2004) was named one of the "Best Books of 2004" by Publishers Weekly.^[4] Additionally, it was runner up in the 2005 National Jewish Book Award in the American Jewish History category,^[5] and it was a Jewish Book Council Finalist for the 2004 Weinberg Judaic Studies Institute Book Award, University of Scranton.^[6] With Jews and the American Soul, "Heinze has made an important contribution to broadening our perspective on what counts as Jewish thought, and has helped to clarify the significant role that Jews and Jewish ideas have played in American intellectual history." ^[7]

Heinze was one of nine authors who contributed to The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America (Columbia University Press),^[8] and to the abridged Race and Ethnicity in America: A Concise History. ^[9] The Columbia Documentary History was praised as a "massive collection of primary-source documents dealing with 'the other' in America... [including]... an extensive introductory essay by a leading historian in the field." ^[10] Heinze's articles have appeared in The Journal of American History, American Quarterly, Religion and American Culture, American Jewish History, Journal of the West, American Jewish Archives, Reviews in American History as well as in newspapers, magazines and on-line publications. Heinze's observations and essays have been published in various newspapers and periodicals including The Jewish Daily Forward.^[11]

In 2007, Heinze left academia and moved to New York City, where he began play-writing full-time. His first full-length play, Turtles All the Way Down, although unproduced, was praised by Soho Theatre (London) as "an accomplished first effort...sharp and highly enjoyable... very theatrical: fast moving with lots of humour." His short comedy The Invention of the Living Room was staged in 2009 at the HB Studio in New York City. His comedy The FQ, has been staged at several venues, and it was a finalist in the 2010 American Globe Theatre's 16th Annual New York City 15-Minute Play Festival where it won "Audience Favorite." Additionally, it was awarded honorable mention in four more categories, including "Best Script." The FQ is going to be published in THE BEST TEN-MINUTE PLAYS of 2011 (Smith & Kraus). [Contract signed with Smith & Kraus, due to be published in Fall, 2011]

Heinze's short play The Bar Mitzvah of Jesus Goldfarb was produced in May, 2010, at the Stone Soup Theatre in Seattle, and again in May, 2011, in New York City at the American Globe's 17th Annual New York City 15-Minute Play Festival (under the title The Bar Mitzvah of Jason Goldfarb), where it won four awards, including the "Judges Choice" and "Audience Choice" for "Best Play." ^[12] He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Bibliography

• Adapting to Abundance: Jewish Immigrants, Mass Consumption and the Search for American Identity (Columbia University Press, 1990) ISBN 978-0-231-06853-6

• Jews and the American Soul: Human Nature in the Twentieth Century (Princeton University Press, 2004) ISBN 978-0-691-11755-3

He is a co-author of the following books:

• Race and Ethnicity in America: A Concise History (Columbia University Press, 2003)
• The Columbia Documentary History of Race and Ethnicity in America (Columbia University Press, 2004), ISBN 978-0-231-12941-1

Notes