Beyond Yiddishkeit

"Beyond Yiddishkeit deals in an intelligent and perceptive way with the issue of Jewish identity in an affluent and highly educated suburban community. Particularly significant is that it relies upon participant observation, as well as ethnographic interview techniques and data, on the part of the author. In this way, the work constitutes the first major study of this type conducted within the liberal Jewish American community. As such, it is a "pioneering" work. Equally impressive is the author's command of the sociological literature on issues of identity and her ability to apply it to the data gathered in this study. She makes sociological jargon intelligible and presents an easily-read and well-constructed book. Her ability throughout the work to focus on issues of modernity is insightful and brilliant. I found myself racing through the book and, indeed, read it in one sitting. This really is an unparalleled work in this field." — David Ellenson, Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion

Beyond the Self grew out of a conference of developmental scientists who examined the ways that young people were developing understandings of self that anchored youth to something larger than their own personal competencies and success. Each of the papers drew on the question of how one locates the formation of identity within the scope of different transcending demands or influences. This special issue is organized into three parts--moral, civic, and cultural and religous identity--but are not exclusive in their focus on these themes as many of the sections provide a more integrated view of human development. In sum, these articles recognize that the search for identity and purpose within adolescence is informed by a multiplicity of voices.

Provides sociological analyses of religious developments and identities in both historical and contemporary Jewish communities.

This volume supplements the acclaimed three volume set published in 1986 and consists of an annotated listing of American Studies monographs published between 1984 and 1988. There are more than 6,000 descriptive entries in a wide range of categories: anthropology and folklore, art and architecture, history, literature, music, political science, popular culture, psychology, religion, science and technology, and sociology.

The women at Julie's International Salon share their experiences of bodily self-presentation, femininity, aging, and caring. Their own words are at the center of the book; the stories of their lives, fresh and compelling, are told here with affection. But beyond the stories themselves, Frida Kerner Furman explores the socio-moral significance of these beauty shop experiences, showing how they reveal as much about society at large as about older women. For in telling us how they perceive reality, make choices, and live in their worlds, the women of Julie's expose structures of power, inequality, and resistance in the larger world that all of us, young or old, beautiful or not, face every day.

American religion - like talk of God - is omnipresent. Popular culture is awash in religious messages, from the singing cucumbers and tomatoes of the animated VeggieTales series to the bestselling "Left Behind" books to the multiplex sensation The Passion of the Christ. In The Transformation of American Religion, sociologist Alan Wolfe argues that the popularity of these cartoons, books, and movies is proof that religion has become increasingly mainstream. In fact, Wolfe argues, American culture has come to dominate American religion to such a point that, as Wolfe writes, "We are all mainstream now." The Transformation of American Religion represents the first systematic effort in more than fifty years to bring together a wide body of literature about worship, fellowship, doctrine, tradition, identity, and sin to examine how Americans actually live their faith. Emphasizing personal stories, Wolfe takes readers to religious services across the nation-an Episcopal congregation in Massachusetts, a Catholic Mass in a suburb of Detroit, an Orthodox Jewish temple in Boston-to show that the stereotype of religion as a fire-and-brimstone affair is obsolete. Gone is the language of sin and damnation, and forgotten are the clear delineations between denominations; they have been replaced with a friendly God and a trend towards sampling new creeds and doctrines. Overall, Wolfe reveals American religion as less radical, less contentious, and less dangerous than it is generally perceived to be.

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