MENDELE Yiddish Language and Literature Personal Notices and Announcements June 4, 2009
To minimize wear and tear on the untershames, three requests: 1. Send time-sensitive notices well in advance. 2. Send material as plain text: no HTML, other coding, or attachments. 3. Correspond directly with the person who or organization which has posted the notice, *not* with your ever-beleaguered untershames. _______________________________________________________________________ Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 20:27:55 -0400 From: Warren Hoffman <[email protected]> Subject: The Passing Game: Queering Jewish American Culture Dear Mendele subscribers, I hope you'll check out my new book The Passing Game: Queering Jewish American Culture which is a comparative study of Yiddish and English-language textsvis-a-vis the topic of sexuality. Here's the official blurb: Tony Kushner's award-winning epic play Angels in America was remarkable not only for its sensitive engagement of Jewish- American and gay culture but also for bringing these themes to a mainstream audience. While the play represented a watershed in American theater and culture, it belies a hundred years of previous attention to queer Jewish identity in twentieth-century American literature, drama, and film. In The Passing Game, Warren Hoffman sheds light on this long history, taking up both Yiddish and English narratives that explore the tensions among Jewish identity, queer sexuality, performance, and American citizenship. With fresh insight Hoffman examines the 1907 Yiddish play God of Vengeance by Sholem Asch, the cross-dressing films of Yiddish actress Molly Picon, and several short stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer. He also analyzes the English-language novels The Rise of David Levinsky (Abraham Cahan), Wasteland (Jo Sinclair), and Portnoy's Complaint (Phillip Roth). Hoffman highlights the ways in which the characters in these canonical texts attempt to "pass" as white, straight, and American in the early and mid-twentieth century. This pioneering work is a welcome contribution to the study of Jewish American literature and culture. Warren Hoffman Now available! The Passing Game: Queering Jewish American Culture by Warren Hoffman Available at amazon.com and all other major bookstores _______________________________________________________________________ Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. Instead,direct your mail as follows: Material for Mendele Personal Notices & Announcements, i.e. announcements of events, commercial publications, etc., always in plain text (no HTML or the like) to: victor.bers at yale.edu (in the subject line write Mendele Personal) Material for postings to Mendele Yiddish literature and language, i.e. inquiries and comments of a non-commercial or publicity nature: mendele at mailman.yale.edu IMPORTANT: Please include your full name as you would like it to appear in your posting. No posting will appear without its author's name. Submissions to regular Mendele should not include personal email addresses, as responses will be posted for all to read. In order to spare the shamosim time and effort, we request thatcontributors adhere, when applicable, as closely as possible to standard English punctuation,grammar, etc. and to the YIVO rules of transliteration into Latin letters, which are explained in summary form at http://www.yivoinstitute.org/about/index.php?tid=57&aid=275 . All other messages should be sent to the shamosim at this address: mendele at mailman.yale.edu Mendele on the web: http://shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/index.htm To join or leave the list: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/mendele _______________________________________________ Mendele mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/mendele
