Key Texts in American Jewish Culture - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813532213 ISBN 13: 9780813532219

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 2003

Synopsis

Key Texts in American Jewish Culture expands the frame of reference used by students of culture and history both by widening the "canon" of Jewish texts and by providing a way to extrapolate new meanings from well-known sources.

Contributors come from a variety of disciplines, including American studies, anthropology, comparative literature, history, music, religious studies, and women's studies. Each provides an analysis of a specific text in art, music, television, literature, homily, liturgy, or history. Some of the works discussed, such as Philip Roth's novel Counterlife, the musical Fiddler on the Roof, and Irving Howe's World of Our Fathers, are already widely acknowledged components of the American Jewish studies canon. Others-such as Bridget Loves Bernie, infamous for the hostile reception it received among American Jews+ may be considered "key texts" because of the controversy they provoked. Still others, such as Joshua Liebman's Piece of Mind and the radio and TV sitcom The Goldbergs, demonstrate the extent to which American Jewish culture and mainstream American culture intermingle with and borrow from each other.

About this title

About the Author:

Jack Kugelmass is the Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Holocaust and Modern Jewish Studies and director of the Jewish Studies Program at Arizona State University. He is the author or editor of numerous books on Jewish history and culture including the forthcoming Rites of the Tribe: The Public Culture of American Jewry.

Review:

This sparkling collection of essays is itself a key critical text in the formation of American Jewish culture -- Ruth R. Wisse, Harvard University

About this edition

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0813532213
• ISBN 13: 9780813532219
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Kugelmass Jack