'You Should See Yourself' : : Jewish Identity in Postmodern American Culture / / Vincent Brook.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Rutgers University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Brook, Vincent,
• MitwirkendeR: Brook, Vincent,; Burstein, Janet Handler,; Byers, Michele,; Cohen, Judah M.,; Edelman, Marsha Bryan,; Fisher, James,; Itzkovitz, Daniel,; Johnston, Ruth D.,; Krieger, Rosalin,; Lewis, Jan,; Moore, Deborah Dash,; Moore, MacDonald,; Most, Andrea,; Rossen, Rebecca,; Weber, Donald,; Weisberg, Ruth,
• Place / Publishing House: New Brunswick, NJ : : Rutgers University Press, , [2006]; ©2006
• Year of Publication: 2006
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (352 p.) :; 45

The past few decades have seen a remarkable surge in Jewish influences on American culture. Entertainers and artists such as Jerry Seinfeld, Adam Sandler, Allegra Goodman, and Tony Kushner have heralded new waves of television, film, literature, and theater; a major klezmer revival is under way; bagels are now as commonplace as pizza; and kabbalah has become as cool as crystals. Does this broad range of cultural expression accurately reflect what it means to be Jewish in America today? Bringing together fourteen new essays by leading scholars, You Should See Yourself examines the fluctuating representations of Jewishness in a variety of areas of popular culture and high art, including literature, the media, film, theater, music, dance, painting, photography, and comedy. Contributors explore the evolution that has taken place within these cultural forms and how we can best explain these changes. Are variations in our understanding of Jewishness the result of general phenomena such as multiculturalism, politics, and postmodernism, or are they the product of more specifically Jewish concerns such as the intermarriage/continuity crisis, religious renewal, and relations between the United States and Israel? Accessible to students and general readers alike, this volume takes an important step toward advancing the discussion of Jewish cultural influences in this country.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Seeing Isn’t Believing -- Literature -- Introduction -- Re-imagining the Jew’s Body: From Self-Loathing to “Grepts” -- Recalling “Home” from Beneath the Shadow of the Holocaust: American Jewish Women Writers of the New Wave -- Theater -- Introduction -- “Your World Is Very Different from Mine”: Troubling Jewish Identity in Postmodern American Theater -- Tony Kushner’s Metaphorical Jew -- Music -- Introduction -- Exploring the Postmodern Landscape of Jewish Music -- Continuity, Creativity, and Conflict: The Ongoing Search for “Jewish” Music -- Dance -- Introduction -- The Jewish Man and His Dancing Shtick: Stock Characterization and Jewish Masculinity in Postmodern Dance -- Painting and Photography -- Introduction -- Between Exile and Irony: Modernism, Postmodernism, and Jewish Modes of Thought -- Observant Jews and the Photographic Arena of Looks -- Film -- Introduction -- Joke-Work: The Construction of Jewish Postmodern Identity in Contemporary Theory and American Film -- They All Are Jews -- Stand-up Comedy -- Introduction -- Genealogies of Jewish Stand-up: Looking Back, Moving Beyond -- Television -- Introduction -- Something Old Is New Again? Postmodern Jewishness in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development, and The O.C. -- “Y’all Killed Him, We Didn’t!” Jewish Self-Hatred and The Larry Sanders Show -- Contributors -- Index