Books by Karen E . H . Skinazi
Reel Gender: Palestinian and Israeli Cinema, 2022
Israeli Jewish filmmaker Rama Burshtein creates trailblazing representations of religious women t... more Israeli Jewish filmmaker Rama Burshtein creates trailblazing representations of religious women that shatter stereotypes of religious women as mere victims of patriarchy. Still, she adamantly refuses the term “feminism,” an ideology whose adherents, in turn, typically reject religious devotion as submission to the patriarchy. This article argues the need to recognize Burshtein’s films as broadening the tent of feminism. At the same time, it interrogates the ways her films obscure adjacent systems of oppression. Without engaging shared and even antagonistic struggles amongst Haredi and Palestinian women, what opportunities for insights into the power of intersectional feminism do we lose?
20% off Women of Valor in the UK and EU
A consequence of rising fundamentalism in Judaism, as in other religions, has been an outbreak of... more A consequence of rising fundamentalism in Judaism, as in other religions, has been an outbreak of culture wars focused on women. Yet, scant attention has been paid to voices of Orthodox Jewish women themselves. This book thus highlights an emerging body of writing by and about these women, who have been doubly marginalized: by rabbinical decrees that increasingly limit their roles, and mainstream accounts that depict them as passive victims. Women of Valor reveals the ways contemporary Jewish women writers from Allegra Goodman to the all-girl Hasidic alt-rock indie band, Bulletproof Stockings, are experimenting with different iterations of the Orthodox woman and endowing her with resilience, wide-ranging capabilities, and, significantly, a voice. It analyzes a range of cultural narratives, including critically acclaimed novels, short stories, blogs, mystery series, graphic fiction, memoirs, films, television, magazines, and music. The book argues that at the heart of their narratives is the reinterpretation of the “Woman of Valor” of Proverbs 31, the passage sung every Friday night to women in Jewish households. Once considered a document of the patriarchy condemning women to domesticity, the “Woman of Valor” has come to serve as the biblical vindication for women’s agency in the intellectual, economic, communal, political, as well as domestic spheres. Contrary to the images of religious women as abject and benighted creatures, then, the new “women of valor” in today’s culture are troll fighters, crime writers, and rock stars—and also religiously observant women who light Sabbath candles, dress modestly, and never mix meat and dairy. They provide a model of contemporary womanhood.
Although located, specifically, in the crossfire of Orthodox Jewish women and their representations, Women of Valor offers a framework for examining the broader landscape of women of marginal communities in liberal-democratic societies of the twenty-first century.
Forthcoming, Rutgers University Press, 2018
The daughter of an English merchant father and Chinese mother, Winnifred Eaton (1875-1954) was a ... more The daughter of an English merchant father and Chinese mother, Winnifred Eaton (1875-1954) was a wildly popular fiction writer in her time. Born in Montreal, Eaton lived in Jamaica and several places in the United States before settling in Alberta. Her books, many of them published under the Japanese pseudonym Onoto Watanna, encompass the experiences of marginalized women in Canada, Jamaica, the United States, and a romantic, imagined Japan. Marion: The Story of an Artist's Model is Eaton's only book that explicitly deals with being "foreign" in Canada. The novel follows the life of "half-foreign" Marion Ascough - a character based on Eaton's own sister - while never identifying her "foreignness." Escaping the unrelenting racial discrimination her family endures in Quebec, Marion follows her dream of being an artist by moving to New York, where she becomes "Canadian" instead of ethnic - a more palatable foreignness. Having successfully stripped herself of her ethnicity, Marion continues to experience discrimination and objectification as a woman, failing as an artist and becoming an artist's model. Karen Skinazi's introduction to Eaton's fascinating narrative draws attention to the fact that although the novel uses many of the conventions of the "race secret" story, this time the secret is never revealed. This new edition of Marion: The Story of An Artist's Model brings back into print a compelling and sophisticated treasure of Asian Canadian/American fiction that offers a rare perspective on ethnicity, gender, and identity.
Papers by Karen E . H . Skinazi
Rutgers University Press, Sep 7, 2018
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2020
American Periodicals: A Journal of History & Criticism, 2017
ABSTRACT:Nine contributors reflect on the rewards and challenges of recovering American women’s w... more ABSTRACT:Nine contributors reflect on the rewards and challenges of recovering American women’s writing through the periodical archive, addressing research methods, collaborative scholarship, and what work remains to be done to reconstruct, interpret, and theorize women’s place in periodical culture.
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2020
Full paper available through link!
Journal of European Popular Culture, 2016
Philip Roth Studies, 2009
Jewish Film & New Media, 2020
Warriors, Witches, Whores: Women in Israeli Cinema. By Rachel S. Harris. Detroit: Wayne State Uni... more Warriors, Witches, Whores: Women in Israeli Cinema. By Rachel S. Harris. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2017. 324 pp., ISBN 978-0814339671. US $35.9
Midwestern Folklore, 2003
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Books by Karen E . H . Skinazi
Although located, specifically, in the crossfire of Orthodox Jewish women and their representations, Women of Valor offers a framework for examining the broader landscape of women of marginal communities in liberal-democratic societies of the twenty-first century.
Forthcoming, Rutgers University Press, 2018
Papers by Karen E . H . Skinazi
Although located, specifically, in the crossfire of Orthodox Jewish women and their representations, Women of Valor offers a framework for examining the broader landscape of women of marginal communities in liberal-democratic societies of the twenty-first century.
Forthcoming, Rutgers University Press, 2018