Welcome to the Zombie Apocalypse

This week in North Philly Notes, we showcase Zombie Apocalypse: Holy Land, Haiti, Hollywood, by Dr. Terry Rey, our latest title published by North Broad Press, a joint open access imprint of Temple University Libraries and Temple University Press.

 

North Broad Press,has published a new textbook. Zombie Apocalypse: Holy Land, Haiti, Hollywood, by Dr. Terry Rey.

Zombie Apocalypse: Holy Land, Haiti, Hollywood explores the intellectual and cultural histories of two highly influential and essentially religious ideas, that of the zombie and that of the apocalypse. The former is a modern idea rooted in Haitian Vodou and its popular African and European religious antecedents, while the latter is an ancient one rooted in Zoroastrianism and the Bible and widely expanded in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and is arguably one of the most influential ideas in world history. Today the merger of the zombie and the apocalypse has pervaded popular culture, with the zombie surpassing the vampire and Frankenstein as the most prolific monster in popular American consciousness.

Drawing on biblical studies, African studies, Caribbean studies, and the sociology and history of religion, Parts I (Holy Land) and II (Haiti) explore the religious origins of these ideas. Part III (Hollywood) uses aspects of cultural studies, literary analysis, critical race theory, and cinema studies to document the (primarily) American obsession with the zombie and the zombie apocalypse.

The apocalypse and the zombie have been momentous intellectual, historical, and cultural realities and social forces in both very ancient and very recent human history and culture. As such, Zombie Apocalypse provides a focused analysis of certain fundamental aspects of human existence. It challenges readers to cultivate their critical thinking skills while learning about two of the most compelling notions in human religious history and the impact they continue to have. 

Terry Rey is Professor and Undergraduate Chair of the Department of Religion at Temple University, where he specializes in the anthropology and history of African and African diasporic religions. His current research projects focus on violence and religion in Central African and Haitian history. Rey developed the Temple course “Zombie Apocalypse: Holy Land, Haiti, Hollywood,” which he began teaching in spring 2020. 

Celebrating Women’s History Month

This week in North Philly Notes, we showcase titles for Women’s History Month. Use promo code TWHM24 for 25% off all our Women’s Studies titles. (Sale ends April 1, 2024.)

Gendered Places: The Landscape of Local Gender Norms across the United States, by William J. Scarborough, reveals how distinct cultural environments shape the patterns of gender inequality

Political Black Girl Magic: The Elections and Governance of Black Female Mayors, edited by Sharon D. Wright Austin, examines the crucial role that Black women have carried out in the cities they govern

Solidarity & Care: Domestic Worker Activism in New York City, by Alana Lee Glaser, shows how intersectional labor organizing and solidarity can effectively protect workers in the domestic work sector and other industries

Forthcoming Titles:

Proper Women: Feminism and the Politics of Respectability in Iran, by Fae Chubin, provides an intersectional analysis of Iran’s feminist activism through an ethnographic study of an NGO-led women’s empowerment program (May)

Female Body Image and Beauty Politics in Contemporary Indian Literature and Culture, edited by Srirupa Chatterjee and Shweta Rao Garg, initiates a much-neglected and much-needed discussion of the politics of Indian women’s body image and self-identity (May)

Refounding Democracy through Intersectional Activism: How Progressive Era Feminists Redefined Who We Are, and What It Means Today, by Wendy Sarvasy, theorizes a useable radical past for intersectional activists today (June)

Do you remember Leslie Jordan?

This week in North Philly Notes, Royal G. Cravens, III, author of Yes Gawd!, writes about the connections between religion, politics, and the late actor Leslie Jordan.

The Tennessee-born actor, comedian, and singer Leslie Jordan was an icon of southern queer culture who left an indelible mark on the world. Perhaps best known for his portrayal of the character Beverley Leslie on Will & Grace, Jordan’s status as a queer hero was cemented (in my opinion) by his portrayal of Brother Boy, the uncle of Ty (Kirk Geiger), the protagonist in Del Shores’ cult classic comedy, Sordid Lives.

I am not a biographer of Jordan’s life, but I have admired his work through the years. Like so many others during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I found joy in his viral videos and I grieved with many when I learned of his tragic passing in October 2022. One of my biggest regrets is not asking Jordan for an interview when writing my book, Yes Gawd! How Faith Shapes LGBT Identity and Politics in the United States.

While doing research for the book, I found an interview with Jordan that contained an example   of what I found in my survey and interview data about the religious experiences of LGBT people. It stood out, so much so that I quoted it at the beginning of chapter 2: “I never walked away from the church,” Jordan told country music legend Shania Twain in a 2021 podcast interview, “I just quit going.” Jordan’s quote sums up many of the experiences I document in Yes Gawd!

“He could preach, preach, preach:” growing up a southern Evangelical

In Sordid Lives, Jordan’s character was institutionalized for being gay.  A major subplot involves unpacking the ways conservative Christianity facilitated his involuntary committal and society’s negative views about Brother Boy and his gay nephew. The role of conservative Christian religion in the oppression of LGBT people is especially pronounced in the film’s sequel, A Very Sordid Wedding, and in another of Shores’ productions, Southern Baptist Sisses, which features Jordan as “Peanut” a “backsliding, homosexual, former Baptist.”

Jordan was vocal about his own experiences with organized religion. Literally vocal —he recorded an album of Christian hymns featuring country music royalty like Dolly Parton in 2021. When asked by NPR’s Ari Shapiro why he decided to record a gospel album, Jordan expressed a sentiment that I found to be relatively common in the research I explain in my book.

“I grew up in the church,” Jordan said. “When you grow up in the church, everything that we did — even socially — was around the church. It was just such a big part of our lives. And I loved that music.”

Jordan grew up Southern Baptist, but my work shows that LGBT people who were raised in Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and more faith traditions have a shared experience. Namely, religious socialization (the milieu of institutions, practices, beliefs, and people that teach us about faith and politics) is a powerful force that can have lasting effects on their identities and politics.

Importantly, I conceptualize socialization as positive, negative, or neutral with respect to affirming LGBT people and rights. Some, like Jordan, who experienced negative religious socialization had “an axe to grind with the church” that didn’t “embrace” him after he realized he was gay. Most of the LGBT people I surveyed who identify as religious pointed out that “organized religion” is frequently wielded as a weapon to divide and suppress not just LGBT identity, but also pluralism – the spirit of appreciation for diversity and democracy.

For example, I found that growing up in a non-affirming Protestant denomination is significantly related to coming out (openly identifying as LGBT) later in life,  even though the LGBT people raised Protestant I surveyed thought they might be LGBT at roughly the same age as LGBT people raised in all the other faith traditions. There could be  several reasons, but it is likely that being raised in a non-affirming faith tradition, especially a Protestant tradition, contributes to stigma and internal identity conflict. Experiencing both of those things makes it more likely that an LGBT person will leave the faith tradition in which they were raised.

Even after disaffiliating, negative religious socialization influences LGBT identity and politics. Like Jordan said, he didn’t “walk away from the church,” he just stopped attending. As I show, these negative experiences can inform an activist politic primarily to prevent the consolidation of political power by conservative religious forces. Negative religious socialization can also inspire LGBT people to seek out faith traditions that affirm their LGBT identity or to reimagine their faith and spirituality altogether.

This comes across most in my evaluation of affirming faith traditions and how the efforts to create inclusive, pluralistic religious communities have helped LGBT people – cognitively, by helping resolve spiritual and psychic conflict; physically, by providing resources and tangible benefits; and politically, by inspiring and facilitating political activism – assert agency in matters of faith in politics that have long been foreclosed by hetero- and cisnormative religious institutions.

In detailing the experiences of LGBT people and the intersection of faith and politics, Yes Gawd!, is not only a story about the political weaponization of faith against LGBT people. Neither is it solely a story of religious disaffiliation. Instead, Yes Gawd! is a story about LGBT people drawing on previous experiences with religion – both positive and negative – to inform who they are and how they engage with the political world. What emerges from the book is an understanding of the ways LGBT people democratize both American politics and religious spaces, holding America to its pluralistic ethos.

Presenting Temple University Press’ Spring 2024 Catalog

This week in North Philly Notes, we present Temple University Press’ Spring 2024 catalog.

Below are our forthcoming books, arranged alphabetically by title. You can also view the catalog online here.

Adoption Memoirs: Inside Stories, by Marianne Novy

Bringing together birthmothers’, adoptees’, and adoptive parents’ portrayals of their experiences in memoirs

Beyond Left, Right, and Center: The Politics of Gender and Ethnicity in Contemporary Germany, by Christina Xydias

Debunks our assumptions about ideology and women’s representation in democracies

Black History in the Philadelphia Landscape: Deep Roots, Continuing Legacy, by Amy Jane Cohen

Philadelphia’s Black history as seen through historical markers, monuments, murals, and more

Carceral Entanglements: Gendered Public Memories of Japanese American World War II Incarceration, by Wendi Yamashita

Critiques how Japanese American public memorializations unintentionally participate in maintaining and justifying a neoliberal racial order

Crossing Great Divides: City and Country in Environmental and Political Disorder, by John D. Fairfield

Forging a path forward toward modes of production and ways of life, less dependent on despoliation and manic consumption, that will be genuinely sustaining

Crossing the Border to India: Youth, Migration, and Masculinities in Nepal, by Jeevan R. Sharma

How the changing political economy of rural Nepal informs the desire and agency of young male migrants who seek work in cities

Death Penalty in Decline?: The Fight against Capital Punishment in the Decades since Furman v. Georgia, Edited by Austin Sarat

Examines how the politics of capital punishment have changed in America since 1972 and the current prospects for abolition

Democracy’s Hidden Heroes: Fitting Policy to People and Place, by David C. Campbell

Turning deeply rooted governance dilemmas into practical policy results

Disability, the Environment, and Colonialism, Edited by Tatiana Konrad

Explores discourses related to gender, race, imperialism, and climate across the colonial era

Displacing Kinship: The Intimacies of Intergenerational Trauma in Vietnamese American Cultural Production, by Linh Thủy Nguyễn

How American children of Vietnamese refugees connect and express their experiences of racialization using the tropes of family, war, and grief

Faith and Community: How Engagement Strengthens Members, Places of Worship, and Society, by Rebecca A. Glazier

Showing how community engagement can build stronger congregations and improve democracy

Female Body Image and Beauty Politics in Contemporary Indian Literature and Culture, Edited by Srirupa Chatterjee and Shweta Rao Garg

Initiates a much-neglected and much-needed discussion of the politics of Indian women’s body image and self-identity

From South Central to Southside: Gang Transnationalism, Masculinity, and Disorganized Violence in Belize City, by Adam Baird

How longstanding socio-economic vulnerability in Belize City created fertile grounds for embedding deported Bloods and Crips from Los Angeles

The Improviser’s Classroom: Pedagogies for Cocreative Worldmaking, Edited by Daniel Fischlin and Mark Lomanno

Exploring improvisation as a fundamental practice for teaching and learning

Play to Submission: Gaming Capitalism in a Tech Firm, by Tongyu Wu

A critical exploration into the gamification in modern workplaces as a means of control

University Press Week Blog Tour: #SpeakUP

It’s University Press Week and the Blog Tour is back! This year’s theme is #SPEAKUP. Today’s theme is Who does your press help #SpeakUP?

Today’s entries feature quotes from authors or staff who are contributing daily to the amplification of voices and expansion of ideas. What does it mean to senior or field-defining or first-time authors—personally, professionally, to their fields at large—to be published by university presses?‘

“I have had a relationship with Temple University Press since the 1990s and have published three books with them. They understand and evaluate my work as being first a piece of scholarship. Their editors have been mentors, not gatekeepers and, in particular, they understand how to work with emerging scholars who need support through the entire process of book production. University presses, by focusing first on scholarship, can also take intellectual risks. Work that would never see the light of day with a corporate press has a chance with a university press. And university presses, as nonprofit entities, have different economic considerations than corporate presses. In my experience, the same amount of content costs about half as much (and in some cases far less than that even) as that produced by a for-profit press, and the quality is indistinguishable from those for-profit press books that cost far more.”—Randy Stoecker, author of Liberating Service Learning

“As a first-time academic author, it’s incredibly reassuring to know that our work is being shared through a trusted press. My coauthors and I have worked hard to develop a text we hope will be useful to higher education professionals across the country. Throughout the writing process, knowing that our work had somewhere to land and that we had collaborators in dissemination took a lot of stress off our shoulders. University presses help so many writers share their unique stories.”—Haley Madden, coauthor of Preparing Students to Engage in Equitable Community Partnerships

“With the proliferation of publishing models for faculty, I believe in and advocate for the fundamental value of the university press. There is simply no other vehicle for long-form arguments that has the level of credibility that a university press can afford. And that is because they take their time to maintain a scholarly process that involves external and internal peer review from subject-matter experts. The existence of university presses also tells me something important about the university, that it is committed to the dissemination of ideas and therefore to the community. For these reasons, I am proud to edit a series under the Temple University Press imprint.”—Paul Djupe, editor of Religion and Political Tolerance in America, and editor of the Press’ Religious Engagement in Democratic Politics series

“It has been a great pleasure to work with Temple University Press on my book, Brothers: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Race. Brothers is the first memoir and by far the most personal book I have written. Everyone at Temple—from my editor to the publicity manager—has been generous and kind, approaching the book not just from a professional vantage point but also from a more human and caring perspective. I am grateful that there are university presses like Temple that are willing to take a chance on a memoir, and that know how to support a historian trying to find a voice beyond academic history.”—Nico Slate, author of Brothers: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Race

“My relationship with Temple University Press goes back some twenty years and four books. In that period, I have worked with two of the best editors. Editors who read my work, a remarkable engagement, in my experience.”—Grant Farred, author of The Perversity of Gratitude

“Being published by Temple University Press is a wonderful vehicle for emerging scholars to offer new perspectives, ideas, and research findings to a broad range of readers. Respected university presses like Temple Press enrich the academic discourse in ways that have an enduring and positive impact on the world.”—Valerie Harrison, coauthor of Do Right by Me

University Press Week Blog Tour: #SPEAKUP

It’s University Press Week and the Blog Tour is back! This year’s theme is #SPEAKUP. Today’s theme is What Does It Mean to #SPEAKUP at your Press? 

Today’s entries shine a spotlight on new or backlist projects that exemplify the ways the SpeakUP theme intersects with a Press’ mission, practices, acquisitions/marketing/production strategies, etc.

Click on links to Presses to read their entries.
(Note: Some Press have not provided links or descriptions of content as of time of publication)

Yale University Press

University of Notre Dame Press
Greg Bourke, author of Gay, Catholic, and American, writes about choosing to publish his book with University of Notre Dame Press.

Columbia University Press
In this interview, Howard University’s Dr. Amy Yeboah Quarkume and Columbia University’s Dr. Frank Guridy #SpeakUP about The Black Lives in the Diaspora series and its mission to uplift voices of Black scholars and authors who have often been marginalized by providing a platform for their research and perspectives.

Leuven University Press
Guest post by a press Acquisitions Editor.

University of Nebraska Press
Guest post, by UNP Director.

University of Chicago Press
Interview with Laura Mamor, author of Sexualing Cancer, a book that SpeaksUP about the intersections of politics, gender, and public health

McGill-Queen’s University Press
#SpeakUP Reading list

University of Amsterdam Press

Purdue University Press
Purdue University Press has a long history of publishig in Jewish, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies.

Harvard Education Press
Executive director Jess Fiorillo writes about HEP’s mission and our books that that “speak up” against problems in education

Bristol University Press
Alison Shaw on BUPs history and mission.

Duke University Press
Curated reading lists with free content.

University Press of Kentucky
Frank X Walker, the first African American writer to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate, is an artist, writer, and educator who has published eleven collections of poetry. A founding member of the Affrilachian Poets, Walker speaks to the importance of books by the University Press of Kentucky.

Johns Hopkins University Press

The University of the West Indies Press
Empowering our authors as Dara Wilkenson Bobb is with her marketing strategy for Gods of Bruising.

Cornell University Press

SUNY Press
#SpeakUP Reading List

University of Manitoba Press
Highlighting ways our recent titles have spoken up.

NYU Press
Author Jeffrey S. Gurock explains how sports hero Marty Glickman spoke out against anti-semitism.

An interview with Jonathan Graubart

This week in North Philly Notes, we repost an interview with Jonathan Graubart, author of Jewish Self-Determination beyond Zionism, which first appeared in the Academe blog on November 6.

BY JENNIFER RUTH

The situation in the Middle East demands the best of all of us. Yet so many capitalize on the moment to harness the conflict to their own domestic “culture wars” agenda. Typical are op-eds like this one, arguing that contextualization, when in support of Palestinian refugees, amounts to little more than illiberal “identity politics.” In another one, Simon Sebag Montefiore, writing for the Atlantic, short-circuits attempts to raise the context of mid-century colonialism by heaping scorn on “the decolonization narrative,” calling it “a toxic, historically nonsensical mix of Marxist theory, Soviet propaganda, and traditional anti-Semitism from the Middle Ages and the 19^th century.” We need more forums where we hear from academics who have thought long and hard about the history and can move us past the binaries that have come to dominate the discourse—academics like Jonathan Graubart, professor of political science at San Diego State, who wrote this post and whose book Jewish Self-Determination Beyond Zionism: Lessons from Hannah Arendt and Other Pariahs was published this year.

Jewish Self-Determination Beyond Zionism places readers in dialogue with thinkers like Martin Buber, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Ella Shohat, and, of course, as the subtitle indicates, Hannah Arendt. I just finished Graubart’s chapter on Arendt and was reminded of all the reasons why “The Decline of the Nation State and the End of the Rights of Man” in Origins of Totalitarianism remains one of the most important pieces ever written. The “solution of the Jewish question merely produced a new category of refugees,” Arendt wrote, demonstrating how linking self-determination to nation-states has produced a crisis of statelessness in every part of the globe. Graubart’s deeply insightful and necessary book enlists Arendt and other voices to establish “a foundation for a contemporary dissenting Jewish perspective, which challenges the fundamental premise of Zionism and reconceives Jewish self-determination to require a just and interactive co-existence among Jews and Palestinians” (4).

I asked Jonathan if he were willing to answer a few questions for the blog and he graciously agreed.

JR:  Why did you feel compelled to write this book?

JG: I’ve been active in the Jewish peace and dissent movement for about thirty-five years and in scholarly research on Israel-Palestine for two decades. The grim direction of Israeli society and its stance toward Palestinians led me to undergo a fundamental probing of what went wrong with Zionism and of how to reimagine Jewish self-determination to be compatible with a just coexistence of Jews and Palestinian Arabs. For inspiration, I looked back to a group of far-sighted dissenting Jewish Zionists from the pre-state era, who I label Humanist Zionists. They looked to the ancient holy Jewish site of Palestine as a base for invigorating Jewish life globally, reviving Hebrew as a spoken language and developing just institutions and practices informed by the best of Jewish and outside values and traditions. In opposition to the mainstream Zionists, they opposed a Jewish nation-state because doing so would subjugate and displace the majority Arab population in Palestine and elevate realpolitik and state interests over Jewish renewal and social justice. More generally, the Humanist Zionists warned the Zionist movement—albeit with no success—against embracing nationalism and imperialism, the two umbrella dynamics that proved devastating to Europe, the world, and to the Jews in particular.

These dissenters were not a large group but included influential Jewish figures, such as Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, Henrietta Szold, and, my personal favorite, Hannah Arendt. They proposed a binational federation that would allow for a just and egalitarian coexistence of Palestine’s Jewish and Arab communities. Although the Humanist Zionist vision lost out, I have found that its insights for advancing both a reckoning of the harms inflicted by the Zionist project and a new vision of Jewish self-determination have become more important than ever.

JR: Has the reception of your book been impacted by the Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza?

JG: These events have sparked greater interest in my book. I’ve had receptive audiences when presenting my book to universities in the US and England and been invited to speak on multiple media outlets, including Al Jazeera Arabic, a progressive Black radio station in Philadelphia, and the Majority Report with Sam Seder. People are much more interested in learning about alternative visions and programs for coexistence. Most gratifying has been the warm reactions I’ve received from Jewish college students. To be sure, my book talk was cancelled at both Oxford University and Cambridge University because of pressure placed on the sponsoring departments to avoid topics that appeared overly critical of Zionism.

JR: Apart from the book, you have a long record of criticizing Israel’s grave abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law, as reflected most recently in your op-ed for Common Dreams, “Why One-Sided US Condemnation of Hamas is Morally Tone-Deaf, Self-Absolving, and Counter-Productive.” You have also raised regular concerns about the efforts of mainstream American Jewish organizations to chill critical discussion on college campuses of Israeli policies. What do your experiences tell us about the current state of academic freedom in the US?

JG: There has been a growing disjuncture over the past several decades on American campuses. On one side is a robust criticism of Israeli policies and US complicity and empathy for Palestinians. This shift extends to Jewish students, who are much more likely than older Jews to consider Israel’s treatment of Palestinians a form of apartheid. On the other side are campus Hillels, affiliated Israel-advocacy groups, and a network of well-endowed Israel-advocacy groups ranging from far-right groups, such as the Canary Mission, and centrist ones, such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Part of their advocacy consists of weaponizing the charge of antisemitism to discredit individuals and organizations they deem hostile to Israel. Guided by the definition from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which employs the expansive language of “double standards” and disproportionality, the Israel-advocacy networks have lobbied colleges and universities to classify anti-Zionism, support for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS), and other strong criticisms of Israel as antisemitic. Crucially, they are backed by high-end donors and leading politicians. In 2019, President Trump signed an Executive Order that empowers the Department of Education to apply the IHRA definition of antisemitism as a guide to find violations of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  President Biden has not rescinded this order. Advocacy groups have already mobilized this new legal tool to take on university programs linked to Middle East issues. [JR: See the AAUP’s 2022 Statement “Legislative Threats to Academic Freedom: Redefinitions of Antisemitism and Racism”]

The Israel-advocacy networks primarily target two categories of people and organizations. One is critical Jewish academics, such as myself, who link our analysis to a distinct Jewish perspective. We are seen as dangerous for disrupting the narrative that all Jews identify closely with the position taken by the establishment advocacy groups. At San Diego State, a number of local groups and individuals have warned Jewish students away from certain of my classes, and appealed to university leaders to either have me removed from public panels on Palestine-Israel or properly “balanced” by a supposed “pro-Israel” Jewish voice. Because I am a tenured professor sufficiently invested in these issues to sustain personal attacks and at a campus where academic freedom is mostly protected, I have not been silenced. Not all Jewish academic critics, however, have enjoyed my luck.

The second targeted group are primarily Arab and other Muslim students and groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Hard-right Israel-advocacy groups, such as the Canary Mission and Stand with Us, openly intimidate students with hostile questions, especially women wearing hijabs, and place students on various “wanted” lists of antisemites and terrorist supporters. At SDSU, I have seen a number of students traumatized by such “doxing” and others who have decided not to express a critical opinion in public. The organization Palestine Legal maintains a more comprehensive compilation across the country of such instances.

The current conflict has intensified the intimidation campaigns. Hillel International, the ADL, and others are encouraging Jewish students to file Title VI complaints. The ADL and the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law are imploring universities to investigate their SJP chapter for giving material support to terrorists. Florida has already moved to ban SJP from its colleges. Importantly, the attacks are not limited to those who arguably expressed support for the initial Hamas invasion but extend to all those who added an “and” to their condemnation of Hamas’ atrocities. Anyone who has provided a broader context and/or also condemned the nature of Israel’s horrific response has been accused of “moral equivalency” and soft on terrorists. In other words, the very act of providing a broader understanding, an essential task of universities, is now deemed as antisemitism or, in the case of Jewish critics, “self-hating.”

Sadly, antisemitism, as well as Islamophobia, has surged in the US, including on college campuses, and demands condemnation and proactive measures. But mobilizing the charge of antisemitism to suppress much-needed scrutiny of Israeli actions is not the way to proceed. As Hannah Arendt argued decades ago, the answer lies in solidarity with all oppressed and probing scrutiny not just of outside persecution but the wrongful actions of one’s own community. The zero-sum, hardline nationalist path chosen by partisan Israel-advocates represents a step backward, an anti-antisemitism of fools.  It is, thus, more urgent than ever to reinvigorate robust discussion and scrutiny, which demands vigorous defense of academic freedom and freedom of expression.

Jennifer Ruth is a contributing editor for Academe Blog and the author, with Michael Bérubé, of It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom and co-editor, with Ellen Schrecker and Valerie Johnson, of The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom, forthcoming from Beacon Press.

Jonathan Graubart is a professor of political science at San Diego State University who specializes in the areas of international relations, international law, Zionism and Jewish dissent, Israel-Palestine, the United Nations, normative theory, and resistance politics and the author of Jewish Self-Determination beyond Zionism: Lessons from Hannah Arendt and other Pariahs.

Announcing Temple University Press’ Fall 2023 catalog

This week in North Philly Notes, we present the titles featured in our Fall 2023 catalog.

My Life in Paper: Adventures in Ephemera, by Beth Kephart
A memoirist’s guide to the role paper plays in our construction of ourselves

In Reunion: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family, by Sara Docan-Morgan

Details how transnational Korean adoptees who have reunited with their birth families navigate identity, family, and belonging

Sons of Chinatown: A Memoir Rooted in China and America, by William Gee Wong

An immigrant father-American son story that illustrates that immigration works despite systemic racism and American exceptionalism

Intimate Strangers: Shin Issei Women and Contemporary Japanese American Community, 1980-2020, by Tritia Toyota

Exploring how Japanese women migrants (shin Issei) are making place/space for themselves among generations of Americans of Japanese ancestry

Taking Stock of Homicide: Trends, Emerging Themes, and Research Challenges, edited by Karen F. Parker, Richard Stansfield, and Ashley M. Mancik

Setting the standard for how to study homicide

Work, Fight, or Play Ball: How Bethlehem Steel Helped Baseball’s Stars Avoid World War I, by William Ecenbarger

The fascinating story of top athletes like Babe Ruth dodging military service by playing ball for shipyards and steel mill teams

Digging in the City of Brotherly Love: Stories from Philadelphia Archaeology, Second Edition, by Rebecca Yamin

New archaeological finds in Philadelphia and state-of-the-art analyses bring more of the city’s unknown past and its people to life

The Barnes Then and Now: Dialogues on Education, Installation, and Social Justice, edited by Martha Lucy Distributed by Temple University Press for the Barnes Foundation

As the Barnes enters its second century, how does it honor its founder’s vision while responding to the complexities of contemporary life and museum practice?

Words like Water: Queer Mobilization and Social Change in China, by Caterina Fugazzola

Examining grassroots strategies the LGBT movement in China used to achieve social change without protest

Yes Gawd!: How Faith Shapes LGBT Identity and Politics in the United States, by Royal G. Cravens III

A comprehensive study of LGBT religious experiences in the United States that provides important lessons for American democracy and civil society

The Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism, Inequality, and the Education Reform Movement, by Neil Kraus

Showing how the contemporary education reform movement is a political campaign created to advance the free markets of neoliberalism

Preparing Students to Engage in Equitable Community Partnerships: A Handbook, by Elizabeth A. Tryon, Haley C. Madden, and Cory Sprinkel

A comprehensive handbook for community-engagement professionals to navigate the art of preparing students for humble, respectful, and equitable community partnerships

All Play and No Work: American Work Ideals and the Comic Plays of the Federal Theatre Project, by Paul Gagliardi

How comic plays of the Federal Theatre Project challenged work norms promoted by the federal government during the Great Depression

Building a Social Contract: Modern Workers’ Houses in Early Twentieth-Century Detroit, by Michael McCulloch

Shows that power is negotiated through housing development, which spatializes race and class relations and is central to workers’ security

Inspired Citizens: How Our Political Role Models Shape American Politics, by Jennie Sweet-Cushman

Do Americans have political role models and, if so, what impact do they have on political behavior and attitudes?

The Perversity of Gratitude: An Apartheid Education, by Grant Farred

How a disenfranchised apartheid education prompted thinking

A Critical Synergy: Race, Decoloniality, and World Crises, by Ali Meghji

Shows how decolonial theory and critical race theory can complement each other, applying them in combination to the world’s greatest social challenges

Modern Migrations, Black Interrogations: Revisioning Migrants and Mobilities through the Critique of Antiblackness, edited by Philip Kretsedemas and Jamella N. Gow

Using Black Studies theory to examine the contemporary meanings of migration

Recovering a Liberating Vision of Jewish Self-Determination in an Age of Entrenched Apartheid

This week in North Philly Notes, Jonathan Graubart, author of Jewish Self-Determination beyond Zionism, reflects on why he no longer identifies as “pro-Israel.”

I

In the early 1990s, I worked at Tikkun Magazine, then the leading liberal-left American Jewish journal. As a young American Jew whose views on Israel had recently become much more critical, I was especially attracted to a forum that challenged Israel’s occupation from an alternative “pro-Israel” perspective. Under Michael Lerner’s leadership, Tikkun provided a much-needed challenge to the American Jewish establishment on Jewish moral responsibility and ethics. I proudly aligned my critical scrutiny with a vision invested in the long-term welfare of Israel and the Jewish people at large. We were the bona fide pro-Israel Jews, while groups such as AIPAC and the ADL, who reflexively defended Israeli actions, were the false champions.

Up through the first part of the 2000s, I faithfully proclaimed my pro-Israel sentiments even as I raised more severe challenges. But like a growing number of Jews committed to justice and solidarity with the oppressed, I have stopped calling myself pro-Israel or Zionist. To begin with, the appeal to an alternative pro-Israel program is decidedly inadequate for confronting Israel’s depravities over the past two decades. As confirmed by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and B’Tselem, Israel is an apartheid state where Jewish supremacy prevails in both the occupied territories and in Israel proper. It now has a Kahanist, Itamar Ben-Gvir, as national security minister, and Bezalel Smotrich, with links to Jewish terrorists, as finance minister, whose mandate extends to the occupied territories. Ben-Gvir opened his tenure by ordering a ban on public displays of the Palestinian flag and approving harsher crackdowns of protests. Not to be outdone, Smotrich opined that the West Bank town of Huwara should be “wiped out” after it had just been subjected to settler violence. These trends confirm the haunting assessment in 2016 by the recently departed Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell:

We are at the height of an erosion process of the liberal values in which our society is based. Those who regard liberal values as a danger to the nation, the homeland and the Jewish state are the ones currently in power. They are striving to delegitimize the left and anyone who does not hold the view that conquering the land and settling it through the use of force are the fundamental foundations of Zion.

Furthermore, unlike Sternhell or Peter Beinart, I find no solace in Israel’s foundational principles. As I review in my book Jewish Self-Determination Beyond Zionism, any liberal values were dwarfed by a commitment to converting a territory that had long been overwhelmingly Arab to a hegemonic Jewish state where the Arab presence was inherently suspect. This is not to say that Israel’s current status inevitably followed from its foundation. Suffice it to note that Jewish supremacy has reigned though all of Israel’s political shifts since 1948. Thus, it is not clear what is the foundation for an alternative pro-Israel program. Fittingly, Tikkun has been supplanted by Jewish Currents as the preeminent critical American Jewish journal, which makes no pretense to providing an alternative Zionist or pro-Israel perspective.

Nevertheless, I have not joined the growing ranks of anti-Zionist Jewish dissenters for two reasons. First, neither the vast majority of Israeli Jews nor Jews elsewhere are about to renounce some form of Jewish self-determination in the territory of Israel-Palestine. Second, although the prevailing Zionist wing demanded Jewish supremacy, the umbrella vision contained appealing dimensions of liberation, egalitarianism, and a just coexistence with Palestinians. Indeed, as Noam Chomsky once remarked, Zionism attracted many Jews who aspired to a transformed Jewish society that would be part of a broader global revolution. Crucially the spirit of an alternative, solidarity-based self-determination still inspires Jewish dissenters. Hence, I regard it as urgent to develop a vision that enables self-determination to flourish for both Jews and Palestinians while categorically breaking from the imperialist and hegemonic nationalist order that has shaped the land since the 1917 Balfour Declaration.

My book reflects my effort to advance such a transformation. I recover the dissenting pre-state Zionist Jewish voices, which included Judah Magnes (a prominent American rabbi and the first chancellor of Hebrew University), Martin Buber, and Hannah Arendt. They looked to Palestine as a base for invigorating Jewish life globally, reviving Hebrew as a spoken language and developing community institutions and practices informed by the best of Jewish and outside values and traditions. In contrast to the mainstream Zionist movement, the dissenters were anti-imperialist and urged an accommodation with the indigenous Arabs. They opposed a hegemonic Jewish state because it would displace Palestinians and elevate realpolitik and state interests over Jewish renewal and social justice. Their alternative was a binational political arrangement, which featured autonomous development for each community, collective equality and shared spaces of governance and community interactions. I adapt this pre-state vision in conversation with a series of post-1967 critical voices, including Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler, Peter Beinart, and Edward Said to develop a new vision of Jewish self-determination devoted to a hybrid Jewish-universal liberation, a full reckoning of Israel’s depredations, and a just and egalitarian coexistence with Palestinians.

Because the terms “pro-Israel” and “Zionism” have become so attached to a hegemonic and unrepentant set of values, I am not seeking to rescue them. For that reason, I have titled my book Jewish Self-Determination Beyond Zionism. It is neither “pro” nor “anti” Israel but a plea for a new and inclusive program of Jewish self-determination whereby the fate of the Jewish people is attached to that of Palestinians in particular and of the global community more broadly. It is my hope that a new generation of what Arendt called “conscious pariahs,” some of whom have taken part in Israel’s ongoing and unprecedented wave of mass protests, will embrace such a program.

Looking at Religion, Politics, and COVID-19

This week in North Philly Notes, Paul Djupe and Amanda Friesen, coeditors of An Epidemic among My People, write about the impact of COVID-19 on collective action in religious communities.

If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. —II Chronicles 7:13–14 (King James Version)

A pandemic, unprecedented in nearly all of living human lifetimes, swept across continents starting in late 2019. By February 2021, total cases topped 100 million worldwide, with deaths numbering over 1.3 million. Understanding, explaining, and responding to this (preventable?) catastrophe has pitted science against ideology, pushed tensions among people of faith, and drawn sharp lines between people and their governments struggling to respond in reasonable ways with lives on the line. As social scientists interested in studying religion and society, we’ve been thinking and gathering data about the implications of the pandemic for our social institutions and individual behaviors as well as the reverse—how our social institutions shape responses to the pandemic. We see the pandemic response as a massive collective action problem—individuals need to cooperate with others and their governments at a time when the individual costs appear high in terms of restricted behavior, and the benefits are distant and collective.

Thinking about the pandemic in terms of collective action highlights core concerns in the social sciences regarding trust in others and in government, compliance with laws that are otherwise difficult to enforce, the availability and spread of accurate information, and the civil society forces that make or break effective governance. Though 1000s of articles have been published about the social science of COVID-19, we thought that a book-length treatment was necessary to mark this substantial moment in time. We were uniquely positioned to address these questions as many Americanist social scientists had secured funding, ethics approval, and organized plans to collect original survey data in a consequential presidential election year. Pivoting to ask about the pandemic in addition to religious and political inquiries provided a nimble responsiveness to events typically not available on the average academic budget. Yet, to fully understand the depth and breadth of these relationships, we needed experts across the social sciences of religion to tell the full story. One particularly rich data collection by the editors conducted in late March 2020 and then October 2020 was made available to our recruited authors who may not have access or funding to run their own studies. In this way, we were able to expand the number of voices interpreting our empirical results.

One of the values of this collection is the breadth and scope of how social scientists approach questions about religion and the COVID-19 pandemic. To keep the individual chapters in conversation with one another, we organized the chapters around three major themes. In the first part, we investigate the reaction of religious communities to pandemic public policies. Numerous churches, well covered in the media, defied state government public health orders, but how common was defiance in the broader population? What religious forces drove defiance?  Part II shifts gears to the courts and court of public opinion, exploring arguments of religious freedom versus public safety. Part III reverses the causal arrow to examine how the pandemic (and pandemic politics) affected group and individual religious choices, behavior, and beliefs.

Throughout, our contributors find a variety of novel insights that have not been aired elsewhere. Here is a sample. Much of the resistance to shut-down orders was linked to prosperity gospel beliefs, in which fervent belief recruited God’s protection from illness. And many religious adherents were more likely to adopt COVID conspiracy theories. Another finding is how Christian nationalists had little regard for protecting the vulnerable at the expense of liberty and the economy.

We looked for racial differences in congregational and clergy reactions given the frequent assertion that racial minority communities were hit harder than white communities. Surprisingly, we largely did not find disparate reactions organized by racial groups, and defiance to public health orders grew as people attended worship more across racial groups. We also saw that racial groups equally trust their clergy with their health, but African-Americans had less trust of medical professionals early in the pandemic.

Despite strong partisan lines drawn over restrictive public health orders, the public’s willingness to save people largely did not follow that pattern, though Trump remained a polarizing figure in related religious freedom cases. This is no surprise, in part due to his own rhetoric, but also because Christian Right organizations found common cause with Trump in the pandemic due to a connection to their historic commitments to law and order and against foreign threats.

An Epidemic among My People expands upon these findings, digging deeper into sources of pandemic information, the impact of the pandemic on religious behaviors, discussion of the legal battles, and more. Our goal was to provide a nearly comprehensive discussion of religion in public life.

Our Contributors: Daniel Bennett, Kraig Beyerlein, Cammie Jo Bolin, Ryan P. Burge, Angel Saavedra Cisneros, Ryon J. Cobb, Melissa Deckman, Joshua B. Grubbs, Don Haider-Markel, Ian Huff, Natalie Jackson, Jason Klocek, Benjamin Knoll, Andrew R. Lewis, Jianing Li, Natasha Altema McNeel, Matthew R. Miles, Shayla F. Olson, Diana Orcés, Samuel L. Perry, Jenna Reinbold, Kelly Rolfes-Haase, Stella M. Rouse, Justin A. Tucker, Dilara K. Üsküp, Abigail Vegter, Michael W. Wagner, Andrew L. Whitehead, Angelia R. Wilson, and the editors: Amanda Friesen and Paul Djupe, who also contributed chapters.

Amanda Friesen is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario and Canada Research Chair in Political Psychology (Tier 2).

Paul A. Djupe directs the Data for Political Research program at Denison University, is an affiliated scholar with PRRI, the series editor of Religious Engagement in Democratic Politics (Temple), and co-creator of religioninpublic.blog. Further information about his work can be found at his website and on Twitter.

An Epidemic among My People is available open access or for purchase