More from the WUMB list.
#99 Jonathan Edwards. Have a Good Time for Me (1973; re-issued 2005). Edwards singing the work of other songwriters. The amazing Wikipedia tells me that Jonathan Edwards was living in Western Massachusetts when he made this album. So far as I know, no relation to the other well-known Jonathan Edwards who spent time in Stockbridge.
#97 Paul Brady. on Andy Irvine/Paul Brady with Donal Lunny and Kevin Burke (1981)
Perfect when you’re in the mood for Irish songs and fiddling. I won’t say how often this mood strikes me.
#95 Jimmy LaFave. The only thing I was able to find in Carnegie Library was his song “I Ain’t Got No Home” on Ribbon Highway--Endless Skyway, A Concert in the Spirit of Woody Guthrie (1993).
#94 Eva Cassidy. The CD I found in the CLP system was her Somewhere (2008), one of a number of posthumous releases. I learned from Wikipedia that she died at the age of 33 in 1996 just as her career was taking off. I had never heard of her but apparently she has become quite well known in the last 15 years. A remarkable voice and a wide range on this album: jazz, blues, folk, country/swing, r&b, etc.
#93 The Band. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (1990)
“Recorded Live in Concert!” “Original Artists!” “Original Recordings!” “richly mesmerizing” “redefining American music” “resonate[s] powerfully through our consciousness” Ok, ok. Always enjoyable to listen to these guys but an awful lot of exclamation points and hyperbole here--I thought Canadians didn’t go in for that sort of thing. But they are very popular, as the scratched-up CD from the Moon Township Public Library attests.
#92 Doc Watson Family. The Watson Family from Smithsonian Folkways, 1990. (Recordings originally released in 1963 and 1976.)
“Classic examples of the Anglo-American folk tradition” (according to Jeff Place in the liner notes). Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that classics are always mediated by their transmission and reception history.
#91 Norah Jones. Come Away with Me (2002). This was the debut album of someone who is now a pretty big star (they sell her albums in Starbucks, I think). I have to confess that while the name sounded familiar, I didn’t really know who she was until I started going through the WUMB list, and I know that says something about me. (Ravi Shankar’s daughter? who knew? probably everyone) Pleasant listening while I did some copy-editing yesterday afternoon.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Coffee is yofi, but liquor is quicker.
(apologies to Ogden Nash and the Hebrew language)
Of course, I am speaking about lectures on the role of these libations in early modern and modern Jewish culture.
Your choice:
Coffee:
Thursday, April 22, 4:00 pm
Jewish Societies and Cultures Seminar, The Harvard Center for the Humanities,
and The Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies present:
"Jews Encounter Coffee in Early Modern Europe"
Robert Liberles, Gerard Weinstock Visiting Professor of Jewish History,
Department of History, Harvard University
Professor of Modern Jewish History at Ben Gurion University, Beersheva, Israel
Harvard University
Harvard Hall, Room 103
Harvard Yard (Near the Johnston Gate)
Cambridge, MA
https://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cjs/events/calendar%20pageLiberles.html
For the Lecture Poster: https://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Ecjs/PDF/Liberles%20Lecture.pdf
Liquor:
The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research cordially invites you to the next
Ruth Gay Seminar in Jewish Studies
Tuesday March 23, 2010 ..... Meet the Faculty: 6:00 PM......Seminar
begins: 6:30 PM
Address: Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY,
Kovno Room. Refreshments and Meet the Faculty at 6 PM. Seminar at 6:30
PM. ADVANCE REGISTRATION REQUIRED. Call 212-294-6143 or email
fmohrer@yivo.cjh.org
Presenter: GLENN DYNNER, Professor of Judaic Studies, Sarah Lawrence
College; author of 'Men of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish
Society' (Oxford University Press, 2006).
Moderator and Respondent: MOSHE ROSMAN, Professor of Jewish History,
Bar Ilan University; Horace Goldsmith Visiting Professor of Jewish
Studies, Yale University.
Topic: "JEWISH TAVERNKEEPERS AND LIQUOR TRADERS IN THE 19TH CENTURY
KINGDOM OF POLAND"
By the end of the 18th century, Jews comprised the vast majority of
tavernkeepers in Poland-Lithuania, leasing taverns and distilleries from
the nobility. According to most historians, Polish Jews were driven out
of the liquor trade over the course of the next century. Yet 19th
century archival sources, including an invaluable collection of personal
petitions (kvitlakh) sent to R. Eliyahu Guttmacher, housed in the YIVO
Archives, provide evidence of the continued existence of Polish Jewish
liquor traders, both open and surreptitious. The continued involvement
of Jews in this sector of the Polish economy points to the fact that
traces of the feudal economic system survived amidst a period of rapid
industrialization and modernization.
While Jewish tavernkeeping was vigorously opposed by powerful groups in
Polish society, one crucial group continued to provide them with cover:
the very local Christians they were accused of victimizing. This talk
analyzes the robust but technically illegal Polish Jewish liquor trade
during the 19th century.
This seminar series is named in honor of the historian and scholar Ruth
Gay (1922-2006) and was made possible thanks to a major gift from the
family of Ruth Gay.
Of course, I am speaking about lectures on the role of these libations in early modern and modern Jewish culture.
Your choice:
Coffee:
Thursday, April 22, 4:00 pm
Jewish Societies and Cultures Seminar, The Harvard Center for the Humanities,
and The Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies present:
"Jews Encounter Coffee in Early Modern Europe"
Robert Liberles, Gerard Weinstock Visiting Professor of Jewish History,
Department of History, Harvard University
Professor of Modern Jewish History at Ben Gurion University, Beersheva, Israel
Harvard University
Harvard Hall, Room 103
Harvard Yard (Near the Johnston Gate)
Cambridge, MA
https://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cjs/events/calendar%20pageLiberles.html
For the Lecture Poster: https://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Ecjs/PDF/Liberles%20Lecture.pdf
Liquor:
The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research cordially invites you to the next
Ruth Gay Seminar in Jewish Studies
Tuesday March 23, 2010 ..... Meet the Faculty: 6:00 PM......Seminar
begins: 6:30 PM
Address: Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY,
Kovno Room. Refreshments and Meet the Faculty at 6 PM. Seminar at 6:30
PM. ADVANCE REGISTRATION REQUIRED. Call 212-294-6143 or email
fmohrer@yivo.cjh.org
Presenter: GLENN DYNNER, Professor of Judaic Studies, Sarah Lawrence
College; author of 'Men of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish
Society' (Oxford University Press, 2006).
Moderator and Respondent: MOSHE ROSMAN, Professor of Jewish History,
Bar Ilan University; Horace Goldsmith Visiting Professor of Jewish
Studies, Yale University.
Topic: "JEWISH TAVERNKEEPERS AND LIQUOR TRADERS IN THE 19TH CENTURY
KINGDOM OF POLAND"
By the end of the 18th century, Jews comprised the vast majority of
tavernkeepers in Poland-Lithuania, leasing taverns and distilleries from
the nobility. According to most historians, Polish Jews were driven out
of the liquor trade over the course of the next century. Yet 19th
century archival sources, including an invaluable collection of personal
petitions (kvitlakh) sent to R. Eliyahu Guttmacher, housed in the YIVO
Archives, provide evidence of the continued existence of Polish Jewish
liquor traders, both open and surreptitious. The continued involvement
of Jews in this sector of the Polish economy points to the fact that
traces of the feudal economic system survived amidst a period of rapid
industrialization and modernization.
While Jewish tavernkeeping was vigorously opposed by powerful groups in
Polish society, one crucial group continued to provide them with cover:
the very local Christians they were accused of victimizing. This talk
analyzes the robust but technically illegal Polish Jewish liquor trade
during the 19th century.
This seminar series is named in honor of the historian and scholar Ruth
Gay (1922-2006) and was made possible thanks to a major gift from the
family of Ruth Gay.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Update on my addiction to print media
This talk show exchange really captures another aspect of the problem.
Thursday Thoughts
a miscellany:
1. Got coffee this morning at a Dunkin Donuts near my house. Apparently their policy is to call customers "guests." I was tempted to feign shock that they were charging a "guest" for his coffee. Paging Miss Manners and George Orwell to the conference room.
2. While drinking said coffee, I read the March 15, 2010 issue of The Nation. Jon Wiener's cover story "Big Tobacco and the Historicans: A Tale of Seduction and Intimidation" proved to be more about intimidation than seduction. Like everything in The Nation these days, unbelievable (and not in a good way). (Check out the article after that one: Greg Kaufmann, "Friedmanism at the Fed.")
We live in Chelm, folks.
3. Last week on a plane trip, I read through the first issue of The Jewish Review of Books Have you ever read a magazine in which every single article was interesting? Actually, I can't really say this about the first JRB but I would say that I found 20 out of 22 pieces fascinating--which is a pretty high percentage for me. (I won't say which 2 were uninteresting to me--you'll have to guess.)
4. I summoned my strength this morning to rip up an offer from the Wall Street Journal to subscribe for 10 dollars a month. I am trying to fight my addiction to subscribing to print periodicals.
Currently arriving at the house and the office (not including journals that come with memberships in professional organizations, alumni magazines, or house organs of museums, public TV stations, synagogues, and the like):
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (7 days a week) (since 2002)
New York Times (Saturday and Sunday) (since I don't know, forever)
Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle (since 2002)
The New Republic (since mid-1990s; dropped for a while but resumed circa 2003)
The Jewish Quarterly Review (since mid-2000s)
The Atlantic (late 90s; and again since circa 2007)
Cook's Illustrated (2000-2003?; and again since ca. 2008)
The Nation (since ca. 2007)
Mother Jones (since 2008)
The Progressive (since ca. 2008)
The New Yorker (since late 2009)
The New York Review of Books (since beginning of 2010)
The Jewish Review of Books (brand-new)
I'm probably forgetting something. If you look at the dates, you will note a disturbing trend (or heartening if you work in journalism).
We did have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal for a while under a really cheap rate but I let it lapse after Murdoch bought it. (Imagine the junk mail you get if you subscribe to the WSJ and the Nation.) I'm letting The Progressive lapse not over politics per se but just because it is extremely boring, not to mention predictable. And I'll probably take a hiatus from Cook's Illustrated for a while since I make one of their recipes about once every two years. I enjoy reading about how many tries it takes to make the perfect pot roast but there has to be a limit.
1. Got coffee this morning at a Dunkin Donuts near my house. Apparently their policy is to call customers "guests." I was tempted to feign shock that they were charging a "guest" for his coffee. Paging Miss Manners and George Orwell to the conference room.
2. While drinking said coffee, I read the March 15, 2010 issue of The Nation. Jon Wiener's cover story "Big Tobacco and the Historicans: A Tale of Seduction and Intimidation" proved to be more about intimidation than seduction. Like everything in The Nation these days, unbelievable (and not in a good way). (Check out the article after that one: Greg Kaufmann, "Friedmanism at the Fed.")
We live in Chelm, folks.
3. Last week on a plane trip, I read through the first issue of The Jewish Review of Books Have you ever read a magazine in which every single article was interesting? Actually, I can't really say this about the first JRB but I would say that I found 20 out of 22 pieces fascinating--which is a pretty high percentage for me. (I won't say which 2 were uninteresting to me--you'll have to guess.)
4. I summoned my strength this morning to rip up an offer from the Wall Street Journal to subscribe for 10 dollars a month. I am trying to fight my addiction to subscribing to print periodicals.
Currently arriving at the house and the office (not including journals that come with memberships in professional organizations, alumni magazines, or house organs of museums, public TV stations, synagogues, and the like):
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (7 days a week) (since 2002)
New York Times (Saturday and Sunday) (since I don't know, forever)
Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle (since 2002)
The New Republic (since mid-1990s; dropped for a while but resumed circa 2003)
The Jewish Quarterly Review (since mid-2000s)
The Atlantic (late 90s; and again since circa 2007)
Cook's Illustrated (2000-2003?; and again since ca. 2008)
The Nation (since ca. 2007)
Mother Jones (since 2008)
The Progressive (since ca. 2008)
The New Yorker (since late 2009)
The New York Review of Books (since beginning of 2010)
The Jewish Review of Books (brand-new)
I'm probably forgetting something. If you look at the dates, you will note a disturbing trend (or heartening if you work in journalism).
We did have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal for a while under a really cheap rate but I let it lapse after Murdoch bought it. (Imagine the junk mail you get if you subscribe to the WSJ and the Nation.) I'm letting The Progressive lapse not over politics per se but just because it is extremely boring, not to mention predictable. And I'll probably take a hiatus from Cook's Illustrated for a while since I make one of their recipes about once every two years. I enjoy reading about how many tries it takes to make the perfect pot roast but there has to be a limit.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
WUMB #105, 104, 102, 100
Quick comments on:
#105 Kingston Trio, Greatest Hits.
It's fun to hear the “beginnings” of the folk movement of the 60s (in the 50s). I listened to this with the kids (well some of this--didn't feel like explaining "The Long Black Veil") and polled them: They prefer the Peter, Paul, & Mary version of “Lemon Tree” (as do I) but they preferred the Kingston Trio’s version of "This Land is my Land." (I prefer Woody Guthrie). We all found their "Charley and the MTA" hard to sing along with although. Yes, we know that they popularized it with their recording of it. But that song has long passed from song-frequently-recorded status to true folk status, in my view. Their "Early Morning Rain" is fantastic.
Again, why are the Kingston Trio not cracking the top 100?
#104 Kate Campbell, "Blues and Lamentations," 2005.
Pretty music but none of it made much of an impression.
#102 Tim O’Brien, "Fiddler’s Green, 2005.
Nice arrangements of traditional songs and ballads, e.g. “Fair Flowers of the Valley”
I also liked his “Early Morning Rain.” Maybe I just like that song.
#100 Mary Black, "Babes in the Woods," 1991.
Includes a very pretty version of Joni Mitchell’s “The Urge for Going.”
#105 Kingston Trio, Greatest Hits.
It's fun to hear the “beginnings” of the folk movement of the 60s (in the 50s). I listened to this with the kids (well some of this--didn't feel like explaining "The Long Black Veil") and polled them: They prefer the Peter, Paul, & Mary version of “Lemon Tree” (as do I) but they preferred the Kingston Trio’s version of "This Land is my Land." (I prefer Woody Guthrie). We all found their "Charley and the MTA" hard to sing along with although. Yes, we know that they popularized it with their recording of it. But that song has long passed from song-frequently-recorded status to true folk status, in my view. Their "Early Morning Rain" is fantastic.
Again, why are the Kingston Trio not cracking the top 100?
#104 Kate Campbell, "Blues and Lamentations," 2005.
Pretty music but none of it made much of an impression.
#102 Tim O’Brien, "Fiddler’s Green, 2005.
Nice arrangements of traditional songs and ballads, e.g. “Fair Flowers of the Valley”
I also liked his “Early Morning Rain.” Maybe I just like that song.
#100 Mary Black, "Babes in the Woods," 1991.
Includes a very pretty version of Joni Mitchell’s “The Urge for Going.”
Get your Grafton fix...
here.
I was recently reminded that Anthony Grafton writes occasional columns in the Daily Princetonian. Although focused on Princeton (naturally), he often has interesting comments there on the state of higher education with relevance to other research universities as well.
I was recently reminded that Anthony Grafton writes occasional columns in the Daily Princetonian. Although focused on Princeton (naturally), he often has interesting comments there on the state of higher education with relevance to other research universities as well.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
WUMB #s 111, 108, 107
For the last week or so, I have been listening off and on (including right now) to (#108) Elvis Costello's new CD, "Secret, Profane, & Sugercane." An Elvis Costello album is always a pleasure from the lyrics to the guitar playing to the singing.
And even though I can't go into details as this is a G-rated blog, his song "Sulpher to Sugarcane" is a lot of fun, in part because of a Pittsburgh reference. I always enjoy the mention of my adopted city of Pittsburgh in popular music: "But now I'm back in Pittsburgh, I might take them up again." Not quite as memorable as "Kathy, I said, as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh..." but still catches my attention. (I also recently was listening to Louis Armstrong's version of "Muskrat Ramble," and I thought he threw in a line about the "Pittsburgh Pirates" coming to town... but I couldn't find any confirmation of this afterward.)
I couldn't get an album by Steve Goodman (#111) out of the library, but I did get hold of a 2003 documentary on DVD, "Live from Austin City Limits" which mixes footage of two of his shows in Austin in the 70's and early 80's with interview footage of him--overlooking Wrigley Field and talking about his song "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request." I have heard plenty of people sing "City of New Orleans" but never the writer himself so that was interesting. Other good stuff here--Goodman was known more as writer than a performer but he did have a certain stage presence.
And finally, I just got "The Dusty Road" out of the library which is a 4-CD set of recordings made by Woody Guthrie (#107) in the 1940s; much of the material was never released. The masters were left in a storage bin of a Brooklyn apartment building for decades and were only released a couple of years ago. Amazing stuff--Guthrie in his prime, a few years before his health began to decline; very clear recordings. If you know and love his music, you will love this collection and if you don't know his music this would be a great place to start. (And of course there is a mention of "Pittsburgh steel" in one of the labor songs.)
In the midst of all this good listening, I recently read this essay by J. Gabriel Boylan in the Nation on changes in the music industry. One of the things we are losing with the MP3-ization of music and the file-by-file purchasing (or stealing) that takes place are all the possibilities of what you can do with the album as material artefact (cf. the codex vs. the electronic book). The Elvis Costello album has liner notes with the lyrics, headed by the name of the song, followed by an old-timey topical sub-head, e.g. "Down Among the Wine and Spirits: Former-Champion Prizefighter Discovers His Name Printed Just Above the Liquor License." And the Woody Guthrie set comes in a little box that looks like an old suitcase, with a thick book explaining the recordings and containing an essay on Guthrie's travels during the Depression--and even two facsimile postcards. You can't get that kind of thing on Youtube.
Last but not least: I am having second thoughts about this whole WUMB project: how seriously should I take a "Top 120" list in which Woody Guthrie doesn't crack the top 100?
And even though I can't go into details as this is a G-rated blog, his song "Sulpher to Sugarcane" is a lot of fun, in part because of a Pittsburgh reference. I always enjoy the mention of my adopted city of Pittsburgh in popular music: "But now I'm back in Pittsburgh, I might take them up again." Not quite as memorable as "Kathy, I said, as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh..." but still catches my attention. (I also recently was listening to Louis Armstrong's version of "Muskrat Ramble," and I thought he threw in a line about the "Pittsburgh Pirates" coming to town... but I couldn't find any confirmation of this afterward.)
I couldn't get an album by Steve Goodman (#111) out of the library, but I did get hold of a 2003 documentary on DVD, "Live from Austin City Limits" which mixes footage of two of his shows in Austin in the 70's and early 80's with interview footage of him--overlooking Wrigley Field and talking about his song "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request." I have heard plenty of people sing "City of New Orleans" but never the writer himself so that was interesting. Other good stuff here--Goodman was known more as writer than a performer but he did have a certain stage presence.
And finally, I just got "The Dusty Road" out of the library which is a 4-CD set of recordings made by Woody Guthrie (#107) in the 1940s; much of the material was never released. The masters were left in a storage bin of a Brooklyn apartment building for decades and were only released a couple of years ago. Amazing stuff--Guthrie in his prime, a few years before his health began to decline; very clear recordings. If you know and love his music, you will love this collection and if you don't know his music this would be a great place to start. (And of course there is a mention of "Pittsburgh steel" in one of the labor songs.)
In the midst of all this good listening, I recently read this essay by J. Gabriel Boylan in the Nation on changes in the music industry. One of the things we are losing with the MP3-ization of music and the file-by-file purchasing (or stealing) that takes place are all the possibilities of what you can do with the album as material artefact (cf. the codex vs. the electronic book). The Elvis Costello album has liner notes with the lyrics, headed by the name of the song, followed by an old-timey topical sub-head, e.g. "Down Among the Wine and Spirits: Former-Champion Prizefighter Discovers His Name Printed Just Above the Liquor License." And the Woody Guthrie set comes in a little box that looks like an old suitcase, with a thick book explaining the recordings and containing an essay on Guthrie's travels during the Depression--and even two facsimile postcards. You can't get that kind of thing on Youtube.
Last but not least: I am having second thoughts about this whole WUMB project: how seriously should I take a "Top 120" list in which Woody Guthrie doesn't crack the top 100?
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
WUMB #120: Kate Rusby
She should be higher on the list--and probably would be if Boston were in England, instead of New England.
Last week, I listened to her 2005 album, "The Girl Who Couldn't Fly." Very pretty folk music, mostly her arrangements of traditional music.
Last week, I listened to her 2005 album, "The Girl Who Couldn't Fly." Very pretty folk music, mostly her arrangements of traditional music.
Monday, January 25, 2010
No Sellers
My neighborhood--reasonably affluent; heavily Jewish and otherwise ethnically diverse; and populated with a lot of academics (near two big research universities)--lost its only general-interest bookstore at the end of 2009 as a major chain pulled out. The rumors are that they were losing too much business to the Internet on the one hand and to a bigger store in their own chain down the road and a competitor up the road in two shopping areas with (gasp!) better parking.
Anyway, the blog for the local Jewish paper put up this photo taken by a local resident.
Anyway, the blog for the local Jewish paper put up this photo taken by a local resident.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Difdafti January 2010
What I browsed last week, from the new book shelves in Hillman Library and from some new books from other libraries brought by PALCI.
A festschrift for Eric Zimmer, edited by Gershon Bacon, Daniel Sperber, and Aharon Gaimoni, title in English: Studies on the History of the Jews of Ashkenaz; title in Hebrew (all the articles are in Hebrew): Meḥkarim be-toldot yehude ashkenaz. (Bar Ilan University Press, 2008) Almost all the articles are on the history of various Ashkenazic minhagim or on conceptualizations of minhagim in halakhic literature. Most of the studies seem to combine fine-grain textual analysis with an attention to larger socio-cultural historical questions.
Last week, I saw the new list of National Jewish Book Awards: Congratulations to Judy Klitzner for the scholarship prize. (I will send you the commemorative trophy.) The next day, I saw her book on the shelf: Subversive Sequels in the Bible: How Biblical Stories Mine and Undermine Each Other (Jewish Publication Society, 2009).
Add to the growing literature on time and calendars in early modern Europe an English translation of Max Engammare, On Time, Punctuality, and Discipline in Early Modern Calvinism (Cambridge University Press); this is an expansion of the French original published in Geneva in 2004 (L’ordre du temps. L’invention de la ponctualité au XVIe siècle.)
Laura Lunger Knoppers and her colleagues have put together an impressive Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing. I just wish they had added “in England and Britain” to the title.... Seems to me I’ve mentioned this problem before. To my good friends (who would never make this mistake) and to their colleagues (who might) in English literary and cultural studies, I wish to remind you that England was not the only place to have a “medieval” or “early modern” period or to have (possibly) had a “Renaissance” or “Reformation.”
Elliot Wolfson’s new study of the messianism of Menahem Mendel Schneerson, in Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision (Columbia University Press, 2009) is an impressive close reading of the writings of the late Habad rebbe. Wolfson also has interesting methodological comments on the role that textual analysis can play in studying contemporary religious movements. And it may be the first scholarly work on Kabbalah in which texts by Ronald Reagan are cited.
More on semi-secret messianic movements: Marc David Baer, our sometime colleague at the University of Pittsburgh, has published The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks (Stanford University Press, 2010). This book is getting lots of attention.
In the history of the book, Adrian Johns placed the issue of trust and authority between readers, printers, and authors on the agenda. So when I saw a new collection on the shelf with the title eTrust: Forming Relationships in the Online World (ed. Karen S. Cook et al; Russell Sage Foundation, 2009), I thought some book historian might want to look at this. It’s part of a series “The Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust” with 13 previous volumes. But brush up on your math before you tackle it.
I notice that the philosopher Thomas Nagel has a new collection of essays, Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament (Oxford 2010), including the one that led one philosophy blog to ask whether he has “jumped the shark.”
If you think on-line discussions about religion can get heated, check out sixteenth-century French “literature of vituperation” studied by Antónia Szabari, Less Rightly Said: Scandals and Readers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford University Press, 2010).
“Real” religious violence in the past: Jill N. Claster, Sacred Violence: The European Crusades to the Middle East, 1095-1396 (University of Toronto Press, 2009) looks like a very readable survey.
Last week I was also reading P.D. James, Talking about Detective Fiction, where she stresses the importance of the inter-war period as the “Golden Age” of [British] detective fiction. She also suggests that reading novels from this period gives as good a sense of post-WW 1 British anxieties as any social history. But one could look at Richard Overy, The Twilight Years: The Paradox of Britain between the Wars (Viking Press, 2009) for an account of Britons trying to grapple with a sense of impending doom. His starting off point Eric Hobsbawm and friends at Cambridge in 1939 grappling with the idea that they might all die soon.
To the burgeoning literature on the Catholic Church and the Holocaust (in the news this week), one can add Derek Hastings, Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism: Religious Identity and National Socialism (Oxford UP 2010). Hastings threads a fine needle--perhaps anticipating the kind of controversy his book might arouse: “In striving to characterize accurately the activities of early Nazi Catholics in and around Munich, the distinction between the internal-ideal and external-historical perspectives helps to navigate around a central conundrum: avoiding the appearance of indicting Catholicism (as an institutional entity or in ideational terms) for the tragic excesses of the Nazis while at the same time recognizing the important and very real role played by Nazi Catholic clergy and laypeople who, acting as Catholics and in pursuit of what they perceived to be a legitimate form of Catholic identity, were indeed central to the stabilization and spread of the early Nazi movement.” (p.179)
Finally, more theoretical food-for-thought for the study of religion. and history in G.E.R. Lloyd, Disciplines in the Making: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Elites, Learning, and Innovation (Oxford University Press 2009). People in Religious Studies departments spend a lot of time debating how to define “religion” and often assume that it’s our special cross to bear and that those lucky folks in other fields know just what their subject is. Lloyd argues that folks in philosophy, mathematics, history, medicine, art, law, and science all have to think about this also.
A festschrift for Eric Zimmer, edited by Gershon Bacon, Daniel Sperber, and Aharon Gaimoni, title in English: Studies on the History of the Jews of Ashkenaz; title in Hebrew (all the articles are in Hebrew): Meḥkarim be-toldot yehude ashkenaz. (Bar Ilan University Press, 2008) Almost all the articles are on the history of various Ashkenazic minhagim or on conceptualizations of minhagim in halakhic literature. Most of the studies seem to combine fine-grain textual analysis with an attention to larger socio-cultural historical questions.
Last week, I saw the new list of National Jewish Book Awards: Congratulations to Judy Klitzner for the scholarship prize. (I will send you the commemorative trophy.) The next day, I saw her book on the shelf: Subversive Sequels in the Bible: How Biblical Stories Mine and Undermine Each Other (Jewish Publication Society, 2009).
Add to the growing literature on time and calendars in early modern Europe an English translation of Max Engammare, On Time, Punctuality, and Discipline in Early Modern Calvinism (Cambridge University Press); this is an expansion of the French original published in Geneva in 2004 (L’ordre du temps. L’invention de la ponctualité au XVIe siècle.)
Laura Lunger Knoppers and her colleagues have put together an impressive Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Women’s Writing. I just wish they had added “in England and Britain” to the title.... Seems to me I’ve mentioned this problem before. To my good friends (who would never make this mistake) and to their colleagues (who might) in English literary and cultural studies, I wish to remind you that England was not the only place to have a “medieval” or “early modern” period or to have (possibly) had a “Renaissance” or “Reformation.”
Elliot Wolfson’s new study of the messianism of Menahem Mendel Schneerson, in Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision (Columbia University Press, 2009) is an impressive close reading of the writings of the late Habad rebbe. Wolfson also has interesting methodological comments on the role that textual analysis can play in studying contemporary religious movements. And it may be the first scholarly work on Kabbalah in which texts by Ronald Reagan are cited.
More on semi-secret messianic movements: Marc David Baer, our sometime colleague at the University of Pittsburgh, has published The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks (Stanford University Press, 2010). This book is getting lots of attention.
In the history of the book, Adrian Johns placed the issue of trust and authority between readers, printers, and authors on the agenda. So when I saw a new collection on the shelf with the title eTrust: Forming Relationships in the Online World (ed. Karen S. Cook et al; Russell Sage Foundation, 2009), I thought some book historian might want to look at this. It’s part of a series “The Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust” with 13 previous volumes. But brush up on your math before you tackle it.
I notice that the philosopher Thomas Nagel has a new collection of essays, Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament (Oxford 2010), including the one that led one philosophy blog to ask whether he has “jumped the shark.”
If you think on-line discussions about religion can get heated, check out sixteenth-century French “literature of vituperation” studied by Antónia Szabari, Less Rightly Said: Scandals and Readers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford University Press, 2010).
“Real” religious violence in the past: Jill N. Claster, Sacred Violence: The European Crusades to the Middle East, 1095-1396 (University of Toronto Press, 2009) looks like a very readable survey.
Last week I was also reading P.D. James, Talking about Detective Fiction, where she stresses the importance of the inter-war period as the “Golden Age” of [British] detective fiction. She also suggests that reading novels from this period gives as good a sense of post-WW 1 British anxieties as any social history. But one could look at Richard Overy, The Twilight Years: The Paradox of Britain between the Wars (Viking Press, 2009) for an account of Britons trying to grapple with a sense of impending doom. His starting off point Eric Hobsbawm and friends at Cambridge in 1939 grappling with the idea that they might all die soon.
To the burgeoning literature on the Catholic Church and the Holocaust (in the news this week), one can add Derek Hastings, Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism: Religious Identity and National Socialism (Oxford UP 2010). Hastings threads a fine needle--perhaps anticipating the kind of controversy his book might arouse: “In striving to characterize accurately the activities of early Nazi Catholics in and around Munich, the distinction between the internal-ideal and external-historical perspectives helps to navigate around a central conundrum: avoiding the appearance of indicting Catholicism (as an institutional entity or in ideational terms) for the tragic excesses of the Nazis while at the same time recognizing the important and very real role played by Nazi Catholic clergy and laypeople who, acting as Catholics and in pursuit of what they perceived to be a legitimate form of Catholic identity, were indeed central to the stabilization and spread of the early Nazi movement.” (p.179)
Finally, more theoretical food-for-thought for the study of religion. and history in G.E.R. Lloyd, Disciplines in the Making: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Elites, Learning, and Innovation (Oxford University Press 2009). People in Religious Studies departments spend a lot of time debating how to define “religion” and often assume that it’s our special cross to bear and that those lucky folks in other fields know just what their subject is. Lloyd argues that folks in philosophy, mathematics, history, medicine, art, law, and science all have to think about this also.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Eating in Pittsburgh.
I've been telling you about places I enjoyed eating on my two trips to LA last fall, but I haven't mentioned any recent hometown dining experiences. (That may tell you how often we eat out at home...)
Had dinner last night at the Quiet Storm Cafe in the Garfield/Friendship/Bloomfield Lawrenceville border region (on Penn Avenue).
We head there with good friends and our several offspring once every six months or so for dinner. The kids like the mac and cheese, the board games, and the pinball machine. The grown-ups love the vegetarian and vegan offerings. My personal favorite is the Cubano sandwich. But I also tried the Reuben last night and enjoyed that as well.
Had dinner last night at the Quiet Storm Cafe in the Garfield/Friendship/Bloomfield Lawrenceville border region (on Penn Avenue).
We head there with good friends and our several offspring once every six months or so for dinner. The kids like the mac and cheese, the board games, and the pinball machine. The grown-ups love the vegetarian and vegan offerings. My personal favorite is the Cubano sandwich. But I also tried the Reuben last night and enjoyed that as well.
Blog for the Study of the Jewish Book
This is the "personal" blog. When I see information that might be useful for Jewish historians with an interest in the history of the book, I post to the "Blog for the Study of the Jewish Book."
WUMB #119: Tim Buckley
Tim Buckley, “Live at the Folklore Center, NYC, March 6, 1967”; released in 2009.
The first time I listened through this last week, I didn’t pay attention to the date and thought he sounds like he’s going for a sound like 1960s folk. And then I looked at the date of the concert and realized that he wasn’t "going for" it, he was in it. Think early Bob Dylan. Particularly striking song on this album: “No Man Can Find the War.
The first time I listened through this last week, I didn’t pay attention to the date and thought he sounds like he’s going for a sound like 1960s folk. And then I looked at the date of the concert and realized that he wasn’t "going for" it, he was in it. Think early Bob Dylan. Particularly striking song on this album: “No Man Can Find the War.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Parents, Children, and Professions
A few years ago at a meeting of the American [YYY] Association, my wife spoke on a panel of children of practitioners of [YYY] about their experiences growing up around [YYY]. Her twist was the she went into [YYY] like her father and attributes her early interest in the subject to his influence (and that of her mother who studied a cognate field). She also feels that as she gravitated toward this field in her undergraduate and graduate studies she had a better idea of what she was getting into than some of her peers. So this article at Inside Higher Education reporting on a panel of parent-child pairs of historians at the American Historical Association caught my eye. (It might have caught my eye anyway because I know one of the child historians featured, Adam Davis.)
An interesting commonality is that children of [YYY]-ists and children of historians who go into these fields often specialize in different aspects of the field than the parent. This is the case for my wife (we joke about her limited sense of rebellion).
I certainly don't expect that any of my children will become historians, but it is interesting to think that they would have a better sense of what it's all about than I did.
An interesting commonality is that children of [YYY]-ists and children of historians who go into these fields often specialize in different aspects of the field than the parent. This is the case for my wife (we joke about her limited sense of rebellion).
I certainly don't expect that any of my children will become historians, but it is interesting to think that they would have a better sense of what it's all about than I did.
More Historian Detectives
A couple of years ago I noted that many fictional detectives had backgrounds as historians. At that point, apparently, I hadn't read enough Donna Leon to know that Guido Brunetti had studied history at university (see The Death of Faith.)
Monday, January 04, 2010
Books I read in 2009
# December, 2009:
# Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol
# Josephine Tey, The Singing Sands
# C.B. Greenfield, A Little Madness
# Josephine Tey, To Love and Be Wise
# Donna Leon, the Death of Faith
# Marissa Peisman, Unorthodox Practices
# November, 2009:
# Donna Leon, Acqua Alta
# E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed Up-Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
# Harry Kemelman, The Day the Rabbi Left Town
# Valerie Miner, Murder in the English Department
# Margaret Drabble, The Radiant Way
# Margaret Drabble, The Middle Ground
# Jeffrey Shandler, Jews, God, and Videotape
# Lucille Kallen, C.B. Greenfield: The Tanglewood Murder
# October, 2009:
# David Lodge, Deaf Sentence
# Michael Chabon, Manhood for Amateurs
# Cynthia Ozick, Heir to the Glimmering World
# Michael Chabon, Maps and Legends
# September, 2009:
# Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus
# Ruth Langer, To Worship God Properly
# Robertson Davies, What's Bred in the Bone
# August, 2009:
# Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels
# P.D. James and T.A. Critchley, The Maul and the Pear Tree
# Bernard Malamud, Dubin's Lives
# Bernard Malamud, The Assistant
# Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler
# Margaret Drabble, Jerusalem the Golden
# Martha Grimes, Help the Poor Struggler
# Martha Grimes, Jerusalem Inn
# Martha Grimes, The Man with a Load of Mischief
#
# July, 2009:
# Robertson Davies, World of Wonders
# Robertson Davies, The Manticore
# Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler's Planet
# Robertson Davies, Fifth Business
# Martha Grimes, The Dirty Duck
# Martha Grimes, The Dear Leap
# Margaret Drabble, The Realms of Gold
# Ellis Peters, The Confession of Brother Haluin
# Bernard Malamud, The Magic Barrel
# John Updike, A Month of Sundays
# Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good
# June, 2009:
# Judith M. Bennett, History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism
# Mark Mills, The Savage Garden
# Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, The 10,000 Year Explosion
# PD James, The Lighthouse
# May, 2009:
# PD James, Shroud for a Nightingale
# PD James, A Certain Justice
# Carlo Lucarelli, The Damned Season
# Giorgio Bassani, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
# April, 2009:
# Daniel Lord Smail, On Deep History and the Brain
# Iris Murdoch, the Bell
# PD James, Unnatural Causes
# Robin Winks, ed. The Historian as Detective
# March, 2009:
# PD James, Death of An Expert Witness
# PD James, Cover Her Face
# Faye Kellerman, The Mercedes Coffin
# Eric Lax, "Conversations with Woody Allen"
# February, 2009:
# Umberto Eco, Postscript to the Name of the Rose
# PD James, The Black Tower
# Russell Miller, The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle
# Faye Kellerman, Street Dreams
# Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time
# Faye Kellerman, The Forgotten
# Faye Kellerman, Serpent's Tooth
# January, 2009:
# Jonathan Boyarin, Jewishness and the Human Dimension
# Faye Kellerman, Prayers for the Dead
# David G. Roskies, Yiddishlands: A Memoir
# Georges Simenon, Maigret Stonewalled
# Jack Finney, Time and Again
# E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey
# Lee Goldberg, Mr. Monk is Miserable
# Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol
# Josephine Tey, The Singing Sands
# C.B. Greenfield, A Little Madness
# Josephine Tey, To Love and Be Wise
# Donna Leon, the Death of Faith
# Marissa Peisman, Unorthodox Practices
# November, 2009:
# Donna Leon, Acqua Alta
# E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed Up-Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
# Harry Kemelman, The Day the Rabbi Left Town
# Valerie Miner, Murder in the English Department
# Margaret Drabble, The Radiant Way
# Margaret Drabble, The Middle Ground
# Jeffrey Shandler, Jews, God, and Videotape
# Lucille Kallen, C.B. Greenfield: The Tanglewood Murder
# October, 2009:
# David Lodge, Deaf Sentence
# Michael Chabon, Manhood for Amateurs
# Cynthia Ozick, Heir to the Glimmering World
# Michael Chabon, Maps and Legends
# September, 2009:
# Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus
# Ruth Langer, To Worship God Properly
# Robertson Davies, What's Bred in the Bone
# August, 2009:
# Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels
# P.D. James and T.A. Critchley, The Maul and the Pear Tree
# Bernard Malamud, Dubin's Lives
# Bernard Malamud, The Assistant
# Italo Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler
# Margaret Drabble, Jerusalem the Golden
# Martha Grimes, Help the Poor Struggler
# Martha Grimes, Jerusalem Inn
# Martha Grimes, The Man with a Load of Mischief
#
# July, 2009:
# Robertson Davies, World of Wonders
# Robertson Davies, The Manticore
# Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler's Planet
# Robertson Davies, Fifth Business
# Martha Grimes, The Dirty Duck
# Martha Grimes, The Dear Leap
# Margaret Drabble, The Realms of Gold
# Ellis Peters, The Confession of Brother Haluin
# Bernard Malamud, The Magic Barrel
# John Updike, A Month of Sundays
# Iris Murdoch, The Nice and the Good
# June, 2009:
# Judith M. Bennett, History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism
# Mark Mills, The Savage Garden
# Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, The 10,000 Year Explosion
# PD James, The Lighthouse
# May, 2009:
# PD James, Shroud for a Nightingale
# PD James, A Certain Justice
# Carlo Lucarelli, The Damned Season
# Giorgio Bassani, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
# April, 2009:
# Daniel Lord Smail, On Deep History and the Brain
# Iris Murdoch, the Bell
# PD James, Unnatural Causes
# Robin Winks, ed. The Historian as Detective
# March, 2009:
# PD James, Death of An Expert Witness
# PD James, Cover Her Face
# Faye Kellerman, The Mercedes Coffin
# Eric Lax, "Conversations with Woody Allen"
# February, 2009:
# Umberto Eco, Postscript to the Name of the Rose
# PD James, The Black Tower
# Russell Miller, The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle
# Faye Kellerman, Street Dreams
# Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time
# Faye Kellerman, The Forgotten
# Faye Kellerman, Serpent's Tooth
# January, 2009:
# Jonathan Boyarin, Jewishness and the Human Dimension
# Faye Kellerman, Prayers for the Dead
# David G. Roskies, Yiddishlands: A Memoir
# Georges Simenon, Maigret Stonewalled
# Jack Finney, Time and Again
# E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey
# Lee Goldberg, Mr. Monk is Miserable
Catching up with the WUMB Project
See earlier posts for an explanation.
#112 is Janis Ian. Remember Janis Ian? Listened to "God and the FBI" and "Breaking Silence" in late December. Good singer-songwriter-folksy political stuff. Nothing profound to say.
Also found a fairly recent CD by Eric Andersen (#109), "Blue Rain," recorded live in 2007 in Oslo. Yes, a famous folk singer (born in Pittsburgh according to Wikipedia) singing the blues in Scandinavia.
#112 is Janis Ian. Remember Janis Ian? Listened to "God and the FBI" and "Breaking Silence" in late December. Good singer-songwriter-folksy political stuff. Nothing profound to say.
Also found a fairly recent CD by Eric Andersen (#109), "Blue Rain," recorded live in 2007 in Oslo. Yes, a famous folk singer (born in Pittsburgh according to Wikipedia) singing the blues in Scandinavia.
"Spring" Term?
Our semester begins Wednesday. I doubt I will be able to find the weather as congenial as I did at the beginning of the fall term.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Further LA restaurant recommendations:
#1 Real Food Daily. Very good vegan food. I recommend the "not-chos" and the veggie burger. My dining companions were very enthusiastic about the hemp "ice cream" which tasted a lot like chocolate ice cream. (I myself am not a big chocolate fan but I did appreciate the novelty--to me, anyway, of hemp ice cream.) Thanks to the faithful reader of this blog and distinguished perinatalogist who took me there last night.
#2 If you find yourself near the Century Plaza Hotel or the Westfield Mall and don't want to have lunch in the mall food court (although it may be the nicest mall food court in the world), cross Santa Monica Blvd (carefully) and try Clementine. Many thanks to the distinguished and methodologically astute historian of religion who took a group of us there two days ago. I had a very good tuna melt and side of roasted brussels sprouts.
#3 Similar to Clementine but more like a grocery store than a cafe is Joan's on Third. I enjoyed my salmon cake and roasted brussels sprouts there too (but I do have to say that the brussels sprouts were better at Clementine. But I thank the distinguished dermatologist and astute observer of the world who took me there with his delightful twin daughters on Saturday night.
#2 If you find yourself near the Century Plaza Hotel or the Westfield Mall and don't want to have lunch in the mall food court (although it may be the nicest mall food court in the world), cross Santa Monica Blvd (carefully) and try Clementine. Many thanks to the distinguished and methodologically astute historian of religion who took a group of us there two days ago. I had a very good tuna melt and side of roasted brussels sprouts.
#3 Similar to Clementine but more like a grocery store than a cafe is Joan's on Third. I enjoyed my salmon cake and roasted brussels sprouts there too (but I do have to say that the brussels sprouts were better at Clementine. But I thank the distinguished dermatologist and astute observer of the world who took me there with his delightful twin daughters on Saturday night.
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