JEWISHST 106: Mainstream Jews

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JEWISHST 106: Mainstream Jews

also listed as COMPLIT 106

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Schedule: Mondays, 12pm–2pm
Instructor: Professor Saul Noam Zaritt (zaritt@fas.harvard.edu)
Office hours: https://calendly.com/zaritt/30min 
Course format: Seminar with lectures. Depending on enrollment there may be discussion sections. Check back here for more information

Why is it that Jews and discussions of Jewishness appear with such frequency and with such prominence in US culture of the twentieth and the twenty-first century? One can often hear the claim that Hollywood is “owned by Jews.” Many call attention to the number of Jews involved in comics and graphic novels. The State of Israel, and its definition of Judaism, has become a flashpoint in American politics, while antisemitic dog whistles have become commonplace in contemporary political discourse. Contemporary activists often refer to the Jewish legacies—contested or otherwise—of labor advocacy and social justice. What can we make of these intersecting and surprising references to Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness in the current American moment?

This seminar discusses the ways that images of the Jew—philosemitic, antisemitic, and everything in between—recur in the American mainstream. Through analysis of film, television, music, comics, and other mass media, we will track the multiple and contradictory portrayals of Jewishness in the popular American imagination.

 

Assignments

Prior to each course meeting you are asked to read a series of texts and background readings or watch clips, films, and TV episodes and be ready to discuss them in class.

Your standing weekly assignment is the following: By 8pm the evening before class, you are to post to the canvas discussion board one question about one of that week’s texts/films.

This question can be as short as a sentence or as long as a paragraph. It should not be an informational question about something you could google or discover through research. Rather, please let us know what irked you about something you read or viewed, what you’re curious about as you come to class, what question asked by the texts got you thinking. My response will likely be in the form of another question.

[No question need be submitted for the first week of class]

The exchange of questions is essential to the structure of the course. Further assignments will ask you to ask questions of your peers’ questions and outline answers to some of these questions as preparation for paper-writing.

In the middle of the semester you will be assigned a 5-6 paper on a topic that emerges out of our exchange of questions. We will choose this topic together.

The second larger assignment can be another paper or a creative group project. Past topics include: conducting interviews about antisemitism on the  Harvard campus; interviewing actors, journalists, or cultural activists who participate, in one way or another, in popular expressions of Jewishness in American culture; a radio play adapting family history; a guide to Jewish references on the TV show Broad City; creating a podcast around interviews of childhood friends for their views on Israel/Palestine; an attempt to define the term "half-Jewish" through interviews and autobiographical reflection; a website that analyzes and predicts the role of the discussion of Jewishness in contemporary electoral politics; an e-zine of poetry related to Jewish mourning practices and their depiction in popular media. This is really a chance to be creative and work collaboratively. Projects will be designed in consultation with instructors and teaching fellows.

Grading: Weekly questions count toward 40% of the final grade, the midterm paper 20%, and the final paper/project 40%.

 

Proposed Schedule of Readings (subject to change)

Week 1 – What is popular culture? Who are the Jews?

  • Introduction and “Exhibiting Jews” from Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimlett, Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage (1998), 1–13 and 79–128. [Don't fret, there are a lot of photographs!]
  • Adam Sandler, “The Hannukah Song” (1994): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX5Z-HpHH9g
  • - Optional reading: Siegfred Kracauer, “The Mass Ornament” (1927) in The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, trans. Thomas Y. Levin (Harvard University Press, 1995), 75–88.

 

Weeks 2–3 – From Vaudeville to Hollywood and the Mainstreaming of Ethnicity

  • Selections from Jewface (2006), a collection of Jewish dialect songs from 1905-24, and liner notes
  • Alan Crosland, The Jazz Singer (1927)
  • Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma (1943) (Film: 1955)
  • Elia Kazan, Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)
  • Selections from Neil Gabler, An Empire of their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (1988) [Introduction and chapter 6]
  • Selections from Michael Rogin, Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Hollywood Melting Pot (1998): Chapter 1, pp. 3-18, and Chapter 3, pp. 45-70.
  • Vincent Brook, “Still an Empire of Their Own: How Jews Remain Atop a Reinvented Hollywood” in From Shtetl to Stardom: Jews and Hollywood (2017), 3-22, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1wf4dv1.5

 

 

Weeks 4-5 – The Jewish American Everyman

  • Selections from Sarah Imhoff, Masculinity and the Making of American Judaism (Indiana UP, 2017) [Introduction and chapter 9]
  • Daniel Itzkowitz, “They Are All Jews,” in ‘You Should See Yourself’: Jewish Identity in Postmodern American Culture, ed. Vincent Brook (Rutgurs, 2006), 230-251, https://muse-jhu-edu.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/chapter/618177/pdf
  • Ethan and Joel Coen, A Serious Man (2009)
  • Benny and Josh Safdie, Uncut Gems (2019)
  • Jeffrey Shandler, “Serious’ Talk,” AJS Review 35, no. 2 (2011): 349–355, jstor.org/stable/41310622.
  • Ariella Lang, “From Boys to Men: Gender Politics and Jewish Identity in ‘A Serious Man,’” AJS Review 35, no. 2 (2011): 383-91, jstor.org/stable/41310626.
  • The Editors, “An Unserious Man,” Jewish Currents, 23 January 2020, https://jewishcurrents.org/an-unserious-man/

 

Week 6 – Jews and Fantasies of American Power

  • Selections from Superman (1938–present)
  • Selections from X-Men (1963–present)
  • Art Spiegelman, Maus (1980–91)
  • Aline Kominsky-Crumb, “Goldie, a neurotic woman” in Love That Bunch (1990/2018)
  • Selections from Gerard Jones, Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book (2004)
  • Selections from Tahneer Oksman, “How Come Boys Get to Keep Their Noses?” Women and Jewish American Identity in Contemporary Graphic Memoirs (2016)

 

Week 7 – The American Sound — Black and Jewish

  • Irving Berlin, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (1911), George Gershwin, “Summertime” (1935), Paul Robeson “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child” (1926)
  • Rappers and Jewish Lawyers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5lQRZXx8BE
  • Selections from Beastie Boys: "Sabatoge" (1994), “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)” (1986)
  • Jon Stratton, “The Beastie Boys: Jews in Whiteface,” Popular Music 27, no. 3 (2008): 413-432
  • Lil Dicky and Chris Brown, “Freaky Friday”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZla1ttZHaw
  • Dave (2020 Hulu show)
  • Emily Burack, “Rapping About Jewish Lawyers: A History,” Alma, 11 April 2018, https://www.heyalma.com/rapping-jewish-lawyers-history
  • Selections from Jeffrey Melnick, A Right to Sing the Blues: African Americans, Jews, and American Popular Song (1999) [intro and chapter 3]

 

Weeks 8-9 – Our American Israel

  • “The Exodus Song (This Land Is Mine)”, lyrics Pat Boone (1960)
  • Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins, Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days (1995), 7–15.
  • Selections from Amy Kaplan, Our American Israel: The Story of an Entangled Alliance (2018)
  • Selections from Geoffrey Levin, Our Palestine Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948-1978 (2024)
  • Series of readings/clips around current events in Gaza, Palestine, Israel

Week 10 – Globalism

 

Week 11 – Chrismukkah, Interfaith, and the War on Christmas

  • Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, segments on the war on Christmas
  • The OC, “Chrismukkah” (2003): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HpCZ-lwqk8
  • “The One with the Holiday Armadillo” Friends (2000)
  • Daveed Diggs, “Puppy for Hanukkah” (2020)
  • Tango Shalom (2021)
  • Selections from Samira K. Mehta, Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States (2018) [Introduction and chapter 5]

 

Week 12 – Jewish Progressivism

 

Week 13 – Jewish Food

 

 

 

Course Summary:

Date Details Due