Take Aways from Twenty Four Days

On Monday evening, I returned to Pittsburgh after 3.5 weeks of travel. My first stop was in Philadelphia, for the Advanced Summer School in Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania's Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. I joined 25 other graduate students from the U.S., Israel, and Europe to engage with readings and ideas around the topic of "Shaking Foundations." From there I flew on to Venice, Italy, for a summer workshop for early career scholars on "The Ghetto of Venice: The Future of Memory in the Digital Age." With eleven other colleagues from the U.S., Italy, and Israel, I toured the Venice ghetto, read extensively on its history and current attempts to celebrate its legacy, and presented original research. After two weeks of academic, intellectual immersion, I proceeded to vacation for 5 days on the beaches of Croatia. 

Missing Mezuzah, Ghetto Novissimo, Venice, Italy 

Missing Mezuzah, Ghetto Novissimo, Venice, Italy

Ghetto Novissimo, Venice, Italy. Tour by the most excellent Luisella Romeo.

 

From the Katz Center summer school and the Venice workshop, I came home with three new insights about my work:

1. At the Katz Center, a theme that we often returned to in our discussions was whether there is an essential Jewish identity or essential Jewish Studies. I realized that my dissertation very much argues against essentialist definitions of Judaism and Jewishness, as both personal and communal identities. 

2. In one session at the Katz Center, Dr. Anne Oravetz Albert shared her work on communal authority amongst the Sephardi Jews of 17th century Amsterdam. Her scholarship complicates the notion of a singular Jewish "community," and I realized that my research on the JCC movement similarly demonstrates the contestation, conflict, and power struggles within the American Jewish "community" for who should make the decisions about what that "community" should look like and how it should operate.

3. At our final research presentations in Venice, a respondent to a colleague's paper asked the following question: "How do you make space Jewish outside of Israel?" This is, in essence, the matter that confounded the JCC movement in the postwar period. I have addressed this struggle at length in my dissertation, but this particular way of framing the question made me realize that my discussion has focused more on how leaders in the JCC movement dealt with this as an issue of personal identity--not of spacial identity--and that the characteristics of the built environment and the space of the JCC has been relegated to the background of my narrative. My mission is now to go back and revise in a way that foregrounds the spatial dimension of this struggle.

These two workshops came at just the right moment for me. I was bogged down in the minutiae of my dissertation, and these experiences felt like a hand reaching in to pull me up out of the quicksand so I could see the broader relevance of my work. I'm immensely thankful to all of my colleagues and faculty mentors, whose comments and conversations brought me this clarity and helped me develop this insight.  

5 Deadlines, 5 Weeks

Between February 1 and March 2, I submitted five proposals: two for workshops, one for a conference paper, and two for fellowships for next year. Although they varied in intensity, preparing applications always seems to require me to devote, at minimum, a full day’s work (and additional hours later to revise and copy edit). Some take considerably longer. Needless to say, these deadlines have been my sole focus and stressor since the winter holidays.

With all the proposals submitted, I can now relax and feel a sense of accomplishment. I was ambitious in applying for so many opportunities in a single month, but I managed to complete them and grade 36 student papers! Better yet, I already received notification that I was accepted to one of the workshops, and so I know that I will not go 0-5 for this round.

Another immediate benefit of the process was that I was forced to revise the second and third chapters of my dissertation, to submit as writing samples. The revisions were time-consuming and difficult, but through editing the chapters I gained a better understanding of my dissertation’s narrative and argument. As I begin to write chapter 4, I think this knowledge will clarify my approach. The same fellowship application prompted me to consider the final chapters of my dissertation (which still seem far in the future, despite the fact that I will draft them this year). So chapter 4 will not only be built on a solid foundation, it will be written with chapters 5 and 6 in mind; I will be able to connect the first and second halves of the dissertation with ease. 

I’m looking forward to putting aside revision for a little while and diving back into research. More updates to come…

Modeling

Although 2015 was my second year attending the Association for Jewish Studies Conference, this was my first year presenting a paper as a member of a panel (last year I participated in a Graduate Student Lightening Round Session). In preparing to write my paper, I did some research about what distinguishes a successful conference presentation. This blog post from the American Historical Association was most helpful, as was advice from several colleagues. In addition, I turned to academia.edu to find conference papers posted by other scholars that I could use as a template.

As it turns out, very few scholars in history or Jewish Studies have uploaded their past conference papers to academia.edu. I was able to find only one example, from a former graduate student in Jewish Studies, and I relied on it as a model for how to approach my own paper. I was nonetheless left wishing that I had other examples against which to compare it. It is difficult to take the narrative and argument from a dissertation or book chapter and reduce it down to a coherent 15-20 minute bite, and I had hoped to see several different strategies for how to do it! In the end, I think I did a fine job considering that it was my first time turning a chapter into a shorter paper--the presentation seemed to go well. With the hope that it may benefit other graduate students or young scholars, I have posted my paper to my own academia.edu profile. 

2015 in Review

This was a banner year for me, professionally. I received such generous support and was able to accomplish so much: I wrote three chapters, presented a paper at a major conference, conducted six oral history interviews, and did extensive archival research in New York and Cincinnati. Thank you to those who saw potential in my dissertation in 2015 and provided me with funding, resources, and time:

Department of History, Carnegie Mellon University

A.W. Mellon Foundation, Sawyer Seminar on "The Ghetto:  Concept, Conditions, and Connections in Transnational Historical Perspective, from the 11th Century to the Present," particularly Profs. Wendy Z. Goldman and Joe William Trotter, Jr. who granted me one of the Seminar's pre-doctoral fellowships

Graduate Student Association, Carnegie Mellon University

American Academy for Jewish Research

The Jacob Rader Marcus Center, American Jewish Archives

Feinstein Center for American Jewish History, Temple University

Association for Jewish Studies and Knapp Family Foundation

My dissertation committee, Profs. Caroline Acker, Rachel Kranson, and Joe Trotter

I also had the opportunity to serve as a teaching assistant again this fall, and it was a badly-needed reminder that teaching (if not grading) is deeply fulfilling work. 

In 2016, I hope to continue building on the growth I made this year. My goals are to write at least three more chapters, earn a dissertation completion fellowship, send an article to a journal for review, and present at another conference. Ambitious objectives, but ones that I believe are realistic and achievable. 

Happy New Year!