Invited Book Chapters:
“What Seinfeld Begat – Paradoxical Tropes of Jewishness in The Larry Sanders Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Less Than Kind.” Tranversal 2009. Forthcoming
With Michele Byers. “From Ugly Duckling to Cool Fashion Icon: Sarah Jessica Parker’s Blonde Ambitions.” Shofar. 2007
With Michele Byers. “Something Old is New Again? Postmodern Jewishness on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development, and The O.C.” in (ed. Brooks, V.)You Should See Yourself: Jewish Identity in Postmodern American Culture. (London:Rutgers) 2006
“Jews Do Cry – Invisible, Misunderstood and Scorned at York” (Ed. The York Stories Collective) York Stories, Women in Higher Education, TSAR Press, 2000, 229-236.
Refereed Publications:
With Michele Byers. “Beyond Binaries and Condemnation: Opening New Theoretical Spaces in Jewish Television Studies” in Culture, Theory and Critique 46:2 October 2005
“Does He Actually Say the Word Jewish?” – Jewish Representations in Seinfeld” in The Journal for Cultural Research, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2003, 387-404.
Non Refereed Publications (Narrative/Spoken Word)
“A Knish on a Plate of Scones – How To Become Canadian” in Canadian Ethnic Studies Journal, Vol. 35, No. 1 2003, 177-180.
“Crash History Lesson” in The Queen’s College Journal of Jewish Studies, Spring 2001 Vol. 3, 44-46.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Why study Jewish Popular Culture?
I study cultural production mainly of Jews of Eastern European and "mixed raced" (wow, we need a new term, it sounds so archaic) descent because I know either directly or indirectly and paradoxically, it will address Jewish negotiations of being both insiders and outsiders in North America. As much as Jews have felt at home in the U.S. and Canada the last 50 years or so, many of us have felt insecure, as one student told me. To be Jewish is to never know or feel complete acceptance.
This feeling of belonging and not belonging simultaneously, at least unconsciously, may place Jews on the white side and Jews with African heritage on the black side of the racial fence but it does so with various caveats. In postmodern televisual Jewish texts like Seinfeld, The Larry Sanders Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Fried Chicken and Latkas, complex discussions of identity, race, sexuality overlap as they are taken up and speak to the limitations of these categories that flatten them out and empty them of history. They blur simplistic divisions of race, culture, gender and sexuality by challenging dominant notions of masculinity and heterosexuality.
In these texts, Jews, male Jews for the most part (yes, I and others will hope this will change. Lisa Edelstein, pictured above, of House, a staple on many sitcoms in the 1990s, appeared on Seinfeld as George Constanza's girlfriend), are, at times, not likable, insecure, selfish, effeminate, as Gary Shandling states, appear to be "people struggling" (2007). Humanity becomes center stage through productions of inhumanity and anxiety. How to be a man? How to be a Jewish man? How to be a mensch on such a public stage?
This feeling of belonging and not belonging simultaneously, at least unconsciously, may place Jews on the white side and Jews with African heritage on the black side of the racial fence but it does so with various caveats. In postmodern televisual Jewish texts like Seinfeld, The Larry Sanders Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Fried Chicken and Latkas, complex discussions of identity, race, sexuality overlap as they are taken up and speak to the limitations of these categories that flatten them out and empty them of history. They blur simplistic divisions of race, culture, gender and sexuality by challenging dominant notions of masculinity and heterosexuality.
In these texts, Jews, male Jews for the most part (yes, I and others will hope this will change. Lisa Edelstein, pictured above, of House, a staple on many sitcoms in the 1990s, appeared on Seinfeld as George Constanza's girlfriend), are, at times, not likable, insecure, selfish, effeminate, as Gary Shandling states, appear to be "people struggling" (2007). Humanity becomes center stage through productions of inhumanity and anxiety. How to be a man? How to be a Jewish man? How to be a mensch on such a public stage?
For me, it is not about looking for answers, it is about joining their struggle, their ambivalence about growing up Jewish in a world that offers no incentive to be Jewish. When I consume these texts I am forced to confront myself, all Jews are, in such personal ways, which is perhaps why these productions cause so much discussion and mixed reaction. At the very least, I think many would agree, they spark discussions that are integral to Jewish identity, assimilation and continuity. That's why I study Jewish popular culture at this time.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Kolel course addresses sitcom Judaism
Kolel course addresses sitcom Judaism
By FRANCES KRAFT, Staff Reporter
Thursday, 29 January 2009
TORONTO — Rosalin Krieger has always been fascinated by Jewish popular culture. “It’s such a part of my Jewish cultural experience. I think about it 24/7.”
A PhD candidate in sociology and equity studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Krieger – who has published academic papers and been a conference presenter on Jewishness in television shows – will teach a new course on contemporary constructions of Jewishness in popular sitcoms.
The six-week course, called “Post-Modern Jewishness from ‘Seinfeld’ to ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ ” will run on Thursday evenings at Kolel: The Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning, beginning Feb. 5.
“I’ve always been interested in questions of Jewish identity,” Krieger, 42, told The CJN in a phone interview. Other issues she expects to address in the course include assimilation and continuity.
“These people in Hollywood want consciously or unconsciously to engage us in the discussion of what it means to be who we are,” she said. “I think as Jews we should be part of that.”
Closer to home, a trio of Canadian series – Billable Hours, Less than Kind, and most recently Being Erica – signal “what could be a new wave of Jewish-inflected comedy on our side of the border,” Krieger said.
The issue of “crypto-Jews” on television – such as the ostensibly non-Jewish, but “stereotypically very Jewish” Costanza family on Seinfeld – is particularly interesting to Krieger, who attended Jewish day school until she was 16. She said she would love to have a chat with Garry Shandling and find out why he never “came out” as Jewish in six seasons of his eponymous show.
For historical context on Jewishness in television, Krieger said, “you have to go back to Gertrude Berg,” who created, wrote and acted in a show called The Rise of the Goldbergs, and later just The Goldbergs. The show, originally a radio sitcom, ran from 1929 to the mid-1940s and moved to television a few years later. “Her contribution has been so overlooked,” said Krieger.
She said she hopes that participants in the course at Kolel will see the shows as “Jewish texts… beyond entertainment.
“This is a really exciting time for Jewish cultural expression.”
By FRANCES KRAFT, Staff Reporter
Thursday, 29 January 2009
TORONTO — Rosalin Krieger has always been fascinated by Jewish popular culture. “It’s such a part of my Jewish cultural experience. I think about it 24/7.”
A PhD candidate in sociology and equity studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, Krieger – who has published academic papers and been a conference presenter on Jewishness in television shows – will teach a new course on contemporary constructions of Jewishness in popular sitcoms.
The six-week course, called “Post-Modern Jewishness from ‘Seinfeld’ to ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ ” will run on Thursday evenings at Kolel: The Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning, beginning Feb. 5.
“I’ve always been interested in questions of Jewish identity,” Krieger, 42, told The CJN in a phone interview. Other issues she expects to address in the course include assimilation and continuity.
“These people in Hollywood want consciously or unconsciously to engage us in the discussion of what it means to be who we are,” she said. “I think as Jews we should be part of that.”
Closer to home, a trio of Canadian series – Billable Hours, Less than Kind, and most recently Being Erica – signal “what could be a new wave of Jewish-inflected comedy on our side of the border,” Krieger said.
The issue of “crypto-Jews” on television – such as the ostensibly non-Jewish, but “stereotypically very Jewish” Costanza family on Seinfeld – is particularly interesting to Krieger, who attended Jewish day school until she was 16. She said she would love to have a chat with Garry Shandling and find out why he never “came out” as Jewish in six seasons of his eponymous show.
For historical context on Jewishness in television, Krieger said, “you have to go back to Gertrude Berg,” who created, wrote and acted in a show called The Rise of the Goldbergs, and later just The Goldbergs. The show, originally a radio sitcom, ran from 1929 to the mid-1940s and moved to television a few years later. “Her contribution has been so overlooked,” said Krieger.
She said she hopes that participants in the course at Kolel will see the shows as “Jewish texts… beyond entertainment.
“This is a really exciting time for Jewish cultural expression.”
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