The 47th Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies will take place in Boston, December 13-15, 2015.
The full program is now available on the AJS website: http://www.ajsnet.org/conference-menu.htm
You may also download the program here: PDF
Amihay, Ofra. “Red Diapers, Pink Stories. Color Photography and Self-Outing in Jewish Women’s Comics.” Image & Narrative 16.2 (2015): 42-64.
URL: http://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/imagenarrative/article/view/811
Abstract
In this essay, I analyze the function of color photography in autobiographical comics through a comparative analysis of confessional works of comics by two Jewish women artists, Jewish-American cartoonist Dianne Noomin’s 2003 comics spread “I Was a Red Diaper Baby” and Israeli cartoonist Ilana Zeffren’s Pink Story (written in Hebrew). While exploring the tensions evoked in these works between comics and photography and between black-and-white and color representations, I highlight an important difference in the nature of the images used in each work, evoking yet another tension: that between private and public. I demonstrate that these works by Noomin and Zeffren represent the array of private and public photographs available to any autobiographer, ranging from public images taken from posters, magazines, and video screenshots to intimate family snapshots. I argue that the choice between personal and public photographs in these works poetically determines the path of self-outing in each work, thus representing the two key options for such an act of self-outing, namely, using the personal sphere as a path to the public one or vice-versa. Finally, I address the role of Jewish identity in these two self-outing comics. I posit that while Jewish heritage is not a major factor in either work, the fact that in both cases the community of reference is a minority group within a Jewish community plays a significant role, introducing specific dilemmas into the already complicated identity struggle. By shedding light on the unique function of color photography in autobiographical comics about ethnographically charged self- outing experiences, the analysis of these specific works introduces to a wider audience two important yet insufficiently explored voices of women cartoonists.
Fuchs, Esther, ed. Israeli Feminist Scholarship. Gender, Zionism, and Difference. Austin, TX : University of Texas Press, 2014.
More than a dozen scholars give voice to cutting-edge postcolonial trends (from ecofeminism to gender identity in family life) that question traditional approaches to Zionism while highlighting nationalism as the core issue of Israeli feminist scholarship today.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction. Israeli Feminist Scholarship: Gender, Zionism, and Difference
Esther Fuchs
Chapter One. The Evolution of Critical Paradigms in Israeli Feminist Scholarship: A Theoretical Model
Esther Fuchs
Chapter Two. Politicizing Masculinities: Shahada and Haganah
Sheila H. Katz
Chapter Three. The Double or Multiple Image of the New Hebrew Woman
Margalit Shilo
Chapter Four. The Heroism of Hannah Senesz: An Exercise in Creating Collective National Memory in the State of Israel
Judith T. Baumel
Chapter Five. The Feminisation of Stigma in the Relationship Between Israelis and Shoah Survivors
Ronit Lentin
Chapter Six. Gendering Military Service in the Israel Defense Forces
Dafna N. Izraeli
Chapter Seven. The Halachic Trap: Marriage and Family Life
Ruth Halperin-Kaddari
Chapter Eight. Motherhood as a National Mission: The Construction of Womanhood in the Legal Discourse in Israel
Nitza Berkovitch
Chapter Nine. No Home at Home: Women’s Fiction vs. Zionist Practice
Yaffah Berlovitz
Chapter Ten. Wasteland Revisited: An Ecofeminist Strategy
Hannah Naveh
Chapter Eleven. Tensions in Israeli Feminism: The Mizrahi-Ashkenazi Rift
Henriette Dahan-Kalev
Chapter Twelve. Scholarship, Identity, and Power: Mizrahi Women in Israel
Pnina Motzafi-Haller
Chapter Thirteen. Reexamining Femicide: Breaking the Silence and Crossing “Scientific” Borders
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
Chapter Fourteen. The Construction of Lesbianism as Nonissue in Israel
Erella Shadmi
Chapter Fifteen. From Gender to Genders: Feminists Read Women’s Locations in Israeli Society
Hanna Herzog
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Index
Purchase from publisher: https://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/fucisr
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