Samira K. Mehta
University of Colorado, Boulder, Women and Gender Studies, Faculty Member
- Library of Congress, John W. Kluge Center, Department Memberadd
- Religion, Religion in America, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Religious Pluralism In the United States, American Judaism, American Protestantism, and 9 moreAmerican Catholicism, Religious Practice, Theories of Contemporary Religion, History, Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, American History, and American Religionedit
Chrismukkah and its increased public presence marked a shift in the public discourse around Christian–Jewish interfaith families in the United States in the years surrounding the turn of the millennium. In children’s literature, greeting... more
Chrismukkah and its increased public presence marked
a shift in the public discourse around Christian–Jewish interfaith families in the United States in the years surrounding the turn of the millennium. In children’s literature, greeting cards, humor books, on television and in blogs, interfaith families who practiced elements of both Christianity and Judaism constructed a multicultural identity by the strategic reframing of practices from both backgrounds. Rather than understanding this identity
as based in a failure to choose one religious practice over another,
multicultural interfaith families argued that their blended practices both reflected an unavoidable reality and offered distinct advantages and moral formation to their families. ‘‘Religion,’’ as used by these multicultural families, becomes the domain of religious institutions, with membership lists and competing truth claims. ‘‘Culture,’’ their preferred term, denotes practices that are equivalent and can exist simultaneously in the lives of families and individuals. The article argues that interfaith families who practice both traditions use language of multiculturalism to create a space for such choices to be framed as morally cohesive. This multicultural framing then re-casts these practices, re-inscribing them with values of tolerance and minimization of difference rather than the theological and historical content ascribed by many of the religious institutions that these families avoid.
a shift in the public discourse around Christian–Jewish interfaith families in the United States in the years surrounding the turn of the millennium. In children’s literature, greeting cards, humor books, on television and in blogs, interfaith families who practiced elements of both Christianity and Judaism constructed a multicultural identity by the strategic reframing of practices from both backgrounds. Rather than understanding this identity
as based in a failure to choose one religious practice over another,
multicultural interfaith families argued that their blended practices both reflected an unavoidable reality and offered distinct advantages and moral formation to their families. ‘‘Religion,’’ as used by these multicultural families, becomes the domain of religious institutions, with membership lists and competing truth claims. ‘‘Culture,’’ their preferred term, denotes practices that are equivalent and can exist simultaneously in the lives of families and individuals. The article argues that interfaith families who practice both traditions use language of multiculturalism to create a space for such choices to be framed as morally cohesive. This multicultural framing then re-casts these practices, re-inscribing them with values of tolerance and minimization of difference rather than the theological and historical content ascribed by many of the religious institutions that these families avoid.
Research Interests:
‘‘Negotiating the Interfaith Marriage Bed: Religious Difference and Sexual Intimacies’’ explores depictions of sex lives of interfaith marriage in television, cinema, and advice manuals from the 1970s through the 1990s, as rates of... more
‘‘Negotiating the Interfaith Marriage Bed: Religious Difference and Sexual Intimacies’’ explores depictions of sex lives of interfaith marriage in television, cinema, and advice manuals from the 1970s through the 1990s, as rates of Christian/Jewish marriage dramatically increased. It delineates the narratives that interfaith couples had to navigate in their sexual lives, contrasting the popular discourse that presented sex as the solution to the
tensions of interfaith marriage with the challenges presented in advice manuals on interfaith marriage. In doing so, the article demonstrates the competing constructions of sexuality, as natural, religiously proscribed, and ethnically inflected, and articulates the ways in which those narratives locate
conversations about heterosexual interfaith relationships and marital sexual practice firmly in the realm of the individual subject, even when accounting for more communally oriented understandings of sex.
tensions of interfaith marriage with the challenges presented in advice manuals on interfaith marriage. In doing so, the article demonstrates the competing constructions of sexuality, as natural, religiously proscribed, and ethnically inflected, and articulates the ways in which those narratives locate
conversations about heterosexual interfaith relationships and marital sexual practice firmly in the realm of the individual subject, even when accounting for more communally oriented understandings of sex.
Research Interests:
I was interviewed by Deena Prichep for her NPR piece on Chrismukkah. Academia has listed me as the author (and I can't seem to delete it), but I was an interviewee, not the author.