Field Updates
New Work on American Jewish Literature
May 3, 2021 Even more than scholars in other disciplines, it seems to me, literary scholars regularly disagree about what, methodologically, they’re up to. Lately some of the debates in the field have been over “distant reading” practices, historicism, and whether what we call literary theory still has relevance to
New Developments in Caribbean Jewish Studies
July 9, 2021 When I first began looking at Jewish themes in Caribbean literature some 15 years ago, the scholarly context for this research wasn’t entirely clear to me. A rich historiography of Caribbean Jewry had begun to emerge in the work of scholars such as Natalie Zemon Davis and
Jewish Learning through Cultural Arts
September 29, 2021 The most recent Pew Research Center’s report on American Judaism, “Jewish Americans in 2020,” found that although American Jews overall are not a highly religious group, they are highly engaged in Jewish cultural activities, including cooking Jewish food, visiting historical Jewish sites, reading Jewish literature, and watching
Current American Jewish Music Studies
January 12, 2022 The study of Jewish music in America is not as robust and diverse as other topics in Jewish Studies. For one thing, most approaches to Jewish Music are Eurocentric (which is true of Jewish Studies in general). But the main reason might be that the subject falls
Beyond Ashkenaz: New Research on Ethnic Jewish Diversity in the Americas
April 28, 2022 Debates surrounding Jewish identity, culture, and religion abound across time and space. At the root of the discourse are questions about group boundaries; inclusion and exclusion; and the foundations of Jewish identities. In the United States, Jews from diverse, non-Ashkenazi backgrounds often find their Jewishness questioned, their
Yiddish Studies
January 30, 2023 At the annual Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) meeting this December, there was a notable refrain: “Yiddish is everywhere!” Over three days, more than forty panels, roundtables, and seminars featured at least one—and often more than one—presentation that substantially engaged with Yiddish-language materials. The topics ranged across fields, including history, literature,
Studies on Jewish American Art
When I set out to write this essay, the first thing I did was check for recent dissertations on Jewish American art. I was surprised by what I found—or didn’t find. A keyword search for “Jewish American art” yielded only a handful of results. I had expected to find studies
