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Gender and Jewish Identity

Nashim No. 22, Special Issue: Gender and Jewish Identity
Consulting Editors: Elisheva Baumgarten, Sylvia Barack Fishman

Gender scholarship, in both the social sciences and the humanities, shares many interesting parallels with identity studies. Both have been salient and productive areas of research within the various fields of Jewish Studies over the past three decades. The essays in Nashim 22 investigate a wide range of factors that affect women’s and men’s identities, social, religious, and political.

How did Jewish women leaders a century ago see themselves, and how were they seen by others? When 18-year-old women soldiers were sent to impart literacy skills to immigrant women on Israel's periphery, who were the learners and who were the teachers? Why would some ultra-Orthodox women take on standards of modesty going beyond the strict standards of their sects? Can women poets, writing in Hebrew, appropriate a stake in the world's literary and mythic corpus? What concepts of maleness and femaleness emerge when feminist analysis is applied to a famous Talmudic story? How are new roles emerging for women in the twenty-first century affecting the leadership of Orthodox Jewry? Can a biblical woman's voice emerge via the paintbrush of an Orthodox Jewish man? And, finally, whom do we call "mother"? These questions and more are addressed in Nashim 22. 

Jewish Women Recording, Reflecting, Revisioning

The cover photo of Nashim, No. 21 (Spring 2011, on the theme of "Women in the Responsa Literature,"
under the consulting editorship of David Golinkin), shows a close-up of a phenomenon unheard of until a very few years ago: a woman's hands scribing a traditional Torah scroll.* The hands are those of Shoshana Gugenheim, one of the world's first women Torah scribes. In her article "A Torah Scroll" (Read for Free) in the issue, Judith Margolis, Nashim's Art Editor, calls attention to Shoshana's work and to her involvement in two related and remarkable projects by Jewish women scribes and artists.

The Women's Torah, completed in Seattle, Washington, on October 15, 2010, with the help of many hands, hearts, and spirits, is not only the first Torah scroll to be written and embellished by an international community of women; it is also the first Torah scroll to be literally sewn together in community. READ MORE.

Women of the Book: Jewish Women Recording, Reflecting, Revisioning, a midrashic (interpretive) scroll based on the form and content of a traditional Torah scroll, is being created on 54 parchment panels (the number of Torah portions) by 54 Jewish women artists from around the world. It is an international, multi-denominational installation that acknowledges the centrality of women’s voices in the texts of our lives. READ MORE.

Lidia Rosanski, Parashat Mishpatim, created for Women of the Book. Etching. 65 × 42 cm.

Sharon Rosenzweig, Parshat Behar, created for Women of the Book. Acrylic. 50 × 70cm.

*Photo of Shoshana Gugenheim by Rebekah Raleigh

Memory studies and Gender studies link insights

JMEWS 8.1, Special Issue: Gendered Memory in the Middle East and North Africa: Cultural Norms, Social Practices, and Transnational Regimes

While memory studies have long excluded the Arab Middle East, many Arab countries have recently started to come to terms with their violent pasts. This special issue of the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, entitled “Gendered Memory in the Middle East and North Africa: Cultural Norms, Social Practices, and Transnational Regimes,” presents five case studies from Lebanon, Morocco, and Iraqi Kurdistan, where spaces have opened up for the production of alternative or counter forms of remembering. The papers brought together in this issue tie in with two different fields of research—memory studies and gender studies—linking theoretical insights from both fields to gain a deeper understanding of the ongoing processes of societal and political change in the Middle East and North Africa. The papers explore the tensions and interactions between different forms of memory politics. They seek to answer the question: To what degree did officially controlled efforts to process primary experiences, historiography, public images, and debates into a unified and simplified make-up of narrative, iconic, and ritual elements catered to the wider audience change over time? Introduced and edited by Bettina Dennerlein and Sonja Hegasy, this special issue addresses the broad spectrum of rituals and material manifestations of memory culture, which are a form of representation that gradually changes social orders, particularly in situations of accelerated transformation. Iraq, Lebanon and—the countries dealt with in research articles by Bettina Dennerlein, Susan Slyomovics, Karin Mlodoch, Andrea Fischer-Tahir, and Sune Haugbolle—provide strong examples of how political change is mediated through competing views of the past that always also interpret the present and constitute and prescribe models for the future.

Visit IUP/J online to subscribe. Print single-issue orders may be placed directly with IU Press.
Indiana University Press, call 812.855.8817, 800.842.6796-toll-free.

JMEWS, extremely timely and important

Marcia C. Inhorn, Ph.D,  William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, Yale University is the editor of the Journal of Middle East Womens Studies (JMEWS.) She spoke with us about the journal and its unique scholarly impact.

IU PRESS/Journals: What is it about JMEWS that energizes you the most as a scholar?

Marcia Inhorn: JMEWS is now the major scholarly site for Middle East gender scholars across the globe. The journal publishes the work of senior feminist scholars, as well as many young scholars, who are pushing Middle East gender studies in fascinating new directions. The new work in this area is extremely timely and important, especially given events in the Middle Eastern region during the past decade and, most notably, during the past year.

IU PRESS/Journals: Why do you think JMEWS is an important contribution to the body of scholarly research in your field? What difference does it make? 
 

Marcia Inhorn: JMEWS highlights the importance of Middle Eastern women throughout history and in the contemporary period. In addition, JMEWS is the only journal that actively welcomes contributions on Middle Eastern masculinities and sexualities. So much is changing in the Middle Eastern region, in terms of gender, sexuality, politics, social media, and the like. The gender studies scholars who publish in JMEWS are capturing these transformations in very nuanced fashion. The journal offers its readers a wide spectrum of issues to consider, and is truly eye-opening for those who are unfamiliar with the Middle East region.

IU PRESS/Journals: What influence or impact do you hope that your research has on the world and culture?

Marcia Inhorn: For the past 25 years, I have been following the gender impacts of infertility and the emergence of assisted reproductive technologies, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), in the Middle Eastern region. I have explored the transformative effects of these technologies on women’s lives, as they search for solutions to their childlessness. In addition, I have explored the impacts of the newest assisted reproductive technologies to overcome male infertility, a condition that is a highly prevalent but hidden across the region. Men’s engagement with these technologies is the theme of my new book, The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East (Princeton UP, 2012), which explores the dynamic transformation of masculinity in conjunction with these new technologies.  The book is a humanizing portrayal of the joys and sorrows of ordinary Middle Eastern men, as they engage in assisted reproduction with the women they love. It debunks many stereotypes of “hegemonic” masculinities in the Middle East, as brought to us by both Western media and some scholars.

IU PRESS/Journals: How would it benefit scholars of different disciplines to read the work of scholars outside their field of expertise?

Marcia Inhorn: At the current historical moment, there is no world region more important than the Middle East. Readers of JMEWS will realize that the Middle Eastern region is not monolithic in its history, languages, religions, cultures, and many other important social attributes.The transformations continuously occurring in Middle Eastern women’s and men’s lives are important, and are part and parcel of the revolutionary protests being enacted across the region today.

IU PRESS/Journals: Who do you hope will read the articles in JMEWS?

Marcia Inhorn: Scholars in Gender Studies, Middle East Studies, Islamic Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science, Religious Studies, and History. Educated lay readers interested in empirically based knowledge about Middle Eastern gender.

IU PRESS/Journals: Is there anything else you would like to say to students in your area of research that would entice them to explore the articles in the journal?

Marcia Inhorn: JMEWS has a fantastic new website, which provides visitors with excellent entrée into the journal, its editorial board, its authors, and its essays. Find it here: www.jmews.org.

Marcia also has a website: http://www.marciainhorn.com.

Jewish women and gender studies

Conversation with Deborah Greniman about the journal Nashim.

Why do you think Nashim is an important contribution to the body of scholarly research in your field? What difference does it make?

When the idea of creating a journal of Jewish women’s and gender studies first occurred to me, my first thought was that this was such an obvious thing that such a journal must already exist. I checked, and it didn’t. We are still the only print journal in the field.

With our themed issues (an idea that came, if I recall correctly, from Shulamit Reinharz), we are creating important basic collections of articles in many areas relating to Judaism, Jews and gender – collections that can be used in course work or to help frame approaches to researching a particular area. Feminist and gender studies mandate an interdisciplinary approach, and we’ve leveraged that to create useful bodies of material in areas as diverse as spirituality, women in the economy, reproductive politics, book lore, poetry, the visual arts, sexuality, and halakhah. Our collections on Yemenite and Iranian Jewish women shed light on unique cultural worlds and on issues like migration and acculturation.

What influence or impact do you hope that your research has on the world and culture?

Before the advent of feminist studies, Jewish studies was by and large a men’s club, and even the few brilliant women who managed to enter the field found themselves almost exclusively studying the activities and writings of men. Feminist studies in Judaism broadens the field immensely, from the point of view not only of the subject matter but also of the perspectives brought to bear on it. As the leading focused scholarly organ in this field, we insist that the articles we publish reflect the use of rigorous feminist analytic methods and be well grounded in Jewish knowledge. Our goal is to create a useful body of knowledge, for academics in many fields and for Jewish life beyond the academic world.

We take pride in the integration of regular features on Jewish feminist art into our scholarly corpus. We hope thereby to expand the ways of thinking about and looking at the cultural and social issues raised in our pages. We believe deeply in the interaction of scholarship, art, and life, and in the mission of feminist studies not only to broaden the knowledge base, but to open minds, enrich our culture, and create a better world.

How would it benefit scholars of different disciplines to read the work of scholars outside their field of expertise?

If you’re in any field of the social sciences or the humanities, Nashim has probably published something in that field. Conversely, when you find an article in your field, you’ll probably find next to it an article bringing the perspective of another discipline to a related subject. Scholars need discipline to ground their work, but that doesn’t mean hacking the world of knowledge into disciplinary pieces.

*Deborah Greniman is the managing editor of Nashim.

Serious feminist scholarship in religious studies

 

 

Interview with Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion

Why do you think JFSR is an important contribution to the body of scholarly research in your field? What difference does it make?

In the mid 1980s when Prof. Judith Plaskow and I founded the JFSR as a peer-reviewed journal, established theological journals were not interested in publishing intellectual feminist work and feminist journals were not very much interested in serious feminist scholarship in Religious Studies and Theology. JFSR has filled that gap while also changing the field toward recognizing feminist work more broadly. Because of JFSR, feminist scholarship in religion is always visible on library shelves and online. The journal also remains the central cultivator of feminist conversations in diverse scholarly and praxis arenas. Because of our long history, we also serve as an archive, conveying the richness of feminist scholarship in religion to the next generation of scholars and activists.

From the beginning we invited critical contributions from feminists in different religions and global religious contexts as well as critical reflection on feminist practices. We invite not only scholarly contributions but also knowledge and reports of feminist arguments and praxis in different religions around the world. Thus the journal is not beholden to a specific academic discipline or religious community. JFSR’s conversation spans the disciplines and religious life around the globe. We hope to make diverse feminist scholarship available to American and international audiences.

The journal publishes the work of feminist scholars in the academy as well as teachers and activists. It understands itself as a forum for discussion and dialogue between wo/men from different religious and diverse feminist perspectives. We look for contributions that employ, not only gender critical- but also a race, class, and colonial critical-perspectives. We believe we are accountable not only to the academy but also to wo/men in religious communities around the world. We thereby hope to engender a critical constructive discussion about religion not only among feminist intellectuals but also among the wider public.

What influence or impact do you hope that your research has on the world and culture?

Since religion and culture are intertwined, critical feminist scholarship in religion seeks to change people’s mindsets internalized in and through cultural customs, religious education and preaching. It does so not only by critically analyzing malestream texts and scholarship but also by articulating religious visions and actions for social-cultural-religious change. In articles, roundtables, and special sections the JFSR attempts to open up new ways of thinking and new scholarship on religion. At the same time it seeks to give wo/men the intellectual tools to question established religious authorities that deny full citizenship to wo/men in religion.

How would it benefit scholars of different disciplines to read the work of scholars outside their field of expertise?

Since the JFSR is interdisciplinary we hope that feminist scholars in other disciplines will seriously engage the work done in feminist studies in religion. Millions of wo/men around the world define their identity and work in terms of their religion. Feminist scholars in other disciplines can no longer overlook this. At a time when religion is in the news every day, feminist scholarship may no longer ignore the work done by their feminist colleagues in religion. Any serious discussion on religion in classrooms across the country needs to seriously engage the research of scholars in religion. The JFSR seeks to be a bridge between feminist scholars in other disciplines and those in religious and theological studies.

Jadaliyya: Middle East Masculinity Studies

NEW TEXTS OUT, PAUL AMAR

“Middle East Masculinity Studies: Discourses of ‘Men in Crisis,’ Industries of Gender in Revolution,” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 7.3 (Fall 2011): 36-71.

Jadaliyya: What made you write this article?

Paul Amar: I began drafting this article two years ago in order to seek ways out of the impasse in which the study of sexuality in the Middle East had become trapped. I was asking myself, how do we highlight aspects of coloniality, geopolitics, and power in the study of sexuality, without, on the one hand, reducing the social subjects of sexuality to the dupes, tools, or incitements of Empire or, on the other hand, celebrating “sexual minority identities” as the harbingers of emancipation or modernization? I felt both kinds of reductivism mirrored rather than challenged the legacies of domination, impoverishing the complexity of social history, the contentious nature of politics, and the creativity of culture. READ MORE.

Middle East Sexualities

JMEWS Volume 7, Number 3, Fall 2011, Middle East Sexualities

This special issue of the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies presents work representative of new studies of sexuality in the Middle East and highlights the fact that gender is an inescapable part of such studies. Introduced and edited by Dina al-Kassim and Lara Deeb, the issue includes research articles by Paul Amar, Pardis Mahdavi & Christine Sargent, and Jared McCormick, and a piece by Ghassan Makarem that bridges activist and scholarly writing to narrate the rise of HELEM, a Lebanese lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights organization. Amar’s article maps the discourses of masculininty studies in the Middle East, and tracks the ways that international human rights discourse has given rise to new instrumentalities of the security state. Mahdavi and Sargent draw on ethnographic research in the United Arab Emirates to provide a critique of global rhetoric on human trafficking and an analysis of the ways in which the assumptions of that rhetoric are taken up by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) directed to assist trafficked women, particularly in the context of the United Arab Emirates. Finally, McCormick provides an ethnographic investigation into the figure of the bear in Lebanon and Syria in order to analyze the ways in which hypermasculinity is deployed by various actors in relation to a growing gay tourism industry.  The issue also includes book reviews of recent works that have emerged in the field and collectively demonstrate the growing importance of sexuality studies.

Sexuality and Eroticism in Black Film

Black Camera Vol. 2, No. 2, Beyond Normative: Sexuality and Eroticism in Black Film, Cinema, and Video provides a collection of essays that assesses the way some black filmmakers have used the camera to disrupt representations of normative sexualities and Western ideals of eroticism. Contributing scholars include Greg Thomas, Terry Rowden, L.H. Stallings, Samuel Park, Marlo D. David, Matt Richardson, Babacar M’Baye, and Oliver Bartlet.  These critics engage the work of filmmakers Djibril Diop Mambéty, Bill Gunn, Kathleen Collins, Rodney Evans, Cheryl Dunye, Tina Mabry, and Joseph Gaye Ramaka, as well as subjects such as black women's ecstasy and eroticism, black masculinity in gay porn, documentary filmmaking and sexuality, visual aesthetics and black eroticism, queer interracial desire, and eroticism and modernity in African cinema. In addition to critical essays, the issue also has an interview conducted with black lesbian filmmaker Tina Mabry, and a poster section with commentary and reviews on recent films and book.

BLACK CAMERA: Call for Papers

Precious and the Novel Push/Fall 2012

Afrosurrealism in Film/Video/Fall 2013

For details on submitting to these special issues see more on our blog at this page: http://iupjournalsblog.iupress.org/inscribe_journal/2010/11/black-camera-call-for-papers.html.

Anthropomorphic Taxidermy and Fantasies about Imperial Expansion

Fig. 1. Photograph of Walter Potter’s “The Kittens’ Wedding” (1890) from Walter Potter and his Museum of Curious Taxidermy, by Pat Morris. Ascot: MPM, 2008. Used by permission of Pat Morris.

Victorian Studies 53.1 (Autumn 2010) includes essays by Conor Creaney, Michelle Weinroth, and Aaron Worth. Creaney explores the anthropomorphic taxidermy of Walter Potter — think kitten weddings and elaborate bird funerals, all staged with actual animal carcasses — using Potter’s disquieting tableaux as a way of thinking through the fantasies of representation at work in Victorian fiction, most notably in Charles Dickens's Our Mutual Friend. Weinroth reconsiders William Morris’s Kelmscott Press—founded to refashion Victorian typography and to create beautiful books on the model of medieval manuscripts — in order to question the truism that political activism need be incompatible with beautiful art oriented toward the past. She argues for an understanding of Morris's work at the Kelmscott Press as a new form of socialist praxis rather than, as it’s usually seen, as a break with radicalism. Worth examines the role of information technologies in Victorian imaginings of imperial systems, using the fiction of H. G. Wells (with its heliographs, transport cylinders, and kineto-tele-photographs) as a test case for the anxieties and fantasies about imperial expansion that media helped enable.

In a review forum organized around James Belich's Replenishing the Earth, Dror Wahrman, Peter J. Cain, and Saree Makdisi each consider the implications of Belich’s account of the Settler Revolution — the process that brought huge numbers of Europeans to non-Europeans lands in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — and also of the model for interdisciplinary history that Belich’s book represents. In his response to these critical analyses, Belich addresses both the centrality of the nineteenth century to any critical narrative of modernity and the new models for constructing such narratives afforded by digital technologies. This issue also features 34 book reviews, including Matt Houlbrook on Anna Clark’s Desire: A History of European Sexuality, Leslie A. Hall on Charles Upchurch’s Before Wilde: Sex Between Men in Britain's Age of Reform, and Anne Janowitz on Mike Sanders’ The Poetry of Chartism: Aesthetics, Politics, History.

For more information and to subscribe to Victorian Studies visit our IUP/Journals site on JSTOR.