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Posts from the ‘Jewish Studies’ Category

Sep 30

“Framing Sukkot” Author, Curator Gabrielle Berlinger to Speak at MMWC

At the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, we have already had some very special public events at this fall semester. If you’ve attended some of these events, you surely want to keep going with a good thing. If you’ve missed out so for, you have a chance to get in the groove with a number of upcoming programs. You can find the whole schedule on our website here: https://mathersmuseum.indiana.edu/events1/index.html, but in this post I want to highlight our next Curator’s Talk, this time with Gabrielle Berlinger, Curator of the new exhibition Remembering the Ephemeral: the Ritual Architecture of Sukkot in Contemporary Life. Find the details in the flyer image below.

In addition to what the flyer notes, I will add that Professor Berlinger is an IU graduate who earned her PhD in Folklore, with a minor in Jewish Studies. She serves as an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Folklore and the Babette S. and Bernard J. Tanenbaum Fellow in Jewish History and Culture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (see here for details). She is the author of a great book published in the Material Vernaculars series that the museum co-publishes with Indiana University Press. That book, titled Framing Sukkot, is described on the press’ website here: http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=808979 and a free-to-readers edition is available in IUScholarWorks: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/21232. Gabi also generously serves on the museum’s Policy Committee.

Gabi is a great speaker and it will be wonderful to welcome her back to Bloomington and the MMWC. Please join us.

Sukkot_Flyer_r

Oct 2

Framing Sukkot: Tradition and Transformation in Jewish Vernacular Architecture

Just in time for the holiday that is at its center, I am happy to trumpet the publication of Framing Sukkot: Tradition and Transformation in Jewish Vernacular Architecture by Gabrielle Berlinger. Framing Sukkot is the third title in the Material Vernaculars series and it is appearing in the world just as the Jewish holiday of Sukkot is about to begin for 2017/5778!

Here is how Indiana University Press introduces Professor Berlinger’s new book:

The sukkah, the symbolic ritual home built during the annual Jewish holiday of Sukkot, commemorates the temporary structures that sheltered the Israelites as they journeyed across the desert after the exodus from Egypt. Despite the simple Biblical prescription for its design, the remarkable variety of creative expression in the construction, decoration, and use of the sukkah, in both times of peace and national upheaval, reveals the cultural traditions, political convictions, philosophical ideals, and individual aspirations that the sukkah communicates for its builders and users today.

In this ethnography of contemporary Sukkot observance, Gabrielle Anna Berlinger examines the powerful role of ritual and vernacular architecture in the formation of self and society in three sharply contrasting Jewish communities: Bloomington, Indiana; South Tel Aviv, Israel; and Brooklyn, New York. Through vivid description and in-depth interviews, she demonstrates how constructing and decorating sukkah and performing the weeklong holiday’s rituals of hospitality provide unique circumstances for creative expression, social interaction, and political struggle. Through an exploration of the intersections between the rituals of Sukkot and contemporary issues, such as the global Occupy movement, Berlinger finds that the sukkah becomes a tangible expression of the need for housing and economic justice, as well as a symbol of the longing for home.

As I noted in discussing the edited collection Material Vernaculars: Objects, Images, and Their Social Worlds last fall, it is my hope that many readers will purchase a beautiful paper or hardback edition of Framing Sukkot, thereby helping support the work of a great university press. One of the things that makes IU Press great is its commitment to building strategies for free and open access to scholarly writings. The Material Vernaculars series, co-published with the Mathers Museum of World Cultures, is part of that commitment. So, first let me note that you can buy copies of the book from a range of online booksellers, including Amazon and the IU Press itself. Secondly, let me show you where the free digital edition of the book lives. Hopefully by the time Sukkot ends, people around the world will be reading this great new book.

To access the free PDF version, click on the image below or go to this URL https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/21232

Once you are there, click on the “View/Open” link as shown in the image. Clicking should enable you to download a copy of the book.

Dr. Berlinger is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she is also the Babette S. and Bernard J. Tanenbaum Fellow in Jewish History and Culture within the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies. In addition to the new book, you can find a moving Sukkot-oriented post by Dr. Berlinger on the IU Press blog.

Check out Framing Sukkot!