Title It could lead to dancing : mixed-sex dancing and Jewish modernity / Sonia Gollance

Published Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2021]

Click on the following:
EBSCO eBooks

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xvi, 278 pages) : illustrations Series Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture Stanford studies in Jewish history and culture. Contents Introduction : the space of the dance floor -- The choreography of acculturation -- How Jews learned to dance -- The tavern : Jewish participation in rural leisure culture -- The ballroom : questions of admission and exclusion -- The wedding : celebratory ritual and social enforcement -- The dance hall : commercial leisure culture and American sexual mores -- Epilogue : "What comes from men and women dancing." Summary "Dances and balls appear throughout literature as a place for young people to meet, flirt, and form relationships: as any reader of Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, or Romeo and Juliet can attest, dance scenes provide an opportunity for writers to criticize societal expectations about courtship and partner choice, while simultaneously entertaining their readers. In this book, Sonia Gollance examines Jewish mixed-gender dancing in German and Yiddish literature, arguing that dance provides a powerful lens for understanding Jewish acculturation, secularization, and modernization. Gollance examines the specific literary qualities of dance scenes, such as the parallels between dance figures and plot structures, while also paying close attention to the broader social implications of Jewish engagement with dance during in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While traditional Jewish dance was among men only (or women only), mixed-sex dancing was the very sign of modernity, and thus a charged and complex arena for understanding the limits of acculturation, the dangers of class mixing, and the role of erotic engagement in modernization. Gollance's book is organized around the spaces in which mixed dancing would take place: the tavern, the ballroom, the wedding, and the dance hall. Gollance also draws connections between the cultural history of social dance and contemporary popular culture, illustrating how mixed-sex dancing continues to function as a flexible metaphor for the concerns of Jewish communities in the face of cultural transitions"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on April 07, 2021) Subject Dance in literature. German fiction -- History and criticism Yiddish fiction -- History and criticism Jewish dance in literature. Jews in literature. Sex role in literature. Jews -- Social life and customs. Jews -- Cultural assimilation -- History Jewish dance in literature Dance in literature German fiction Jews -- Cultural assimilation Jews in literature Jews -- Social life and customs Sex role in literature Yiddish fiction Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. History Form Electronic book LC no. 2020035319 ISBN 9781503627802 1503627802

  Permalink