JEWISH WOMEN AND THE READING PUBLIC

2016 ◽  
pp. 64-101
Keyword(s):  
Reading Public ◽  
Jewish Women

Jewish Women and the Reading Public

2013 ◽  
pp. 64-101
Author(s):  
Natalie Naimark-Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
Social Function ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Spare Time ◽  
Primary Activity ◽  
Recurrent Theme

This chapter examines the role of reading in the lives of enlightened Jewish women. A salient feature emerging from the personal testimonies left by the enlightened Jewish women discussed in this book is the prominent place of reading in their lives. These women had at their disposal not only the indispensable skill of literacy, shared by the ever-growing reading public across Europe, but also — thanks to the relative financial comfort which allowed most of these women to delegate housework to others — the necessary spare time to use it, and in most cases no children of their own to make additional demands on their time and attention. Thus, they were able to make reading a primary activity to which they dedicated a significant amount of time and effort. An illustrative account of real craving for books — unthinkable in earlier centuries, especially among women — may be found in Henriette Herz's memoirs. Ultimately, reading served as a source of knowledge no less than as a means of entertainment, and simultaneously fulfilled an important social function, being a prerequisite for social interaction in the modern world, the basis for cultured conversation, and a recurrent theme in learned correspondence.

The Lamp, Qasim Amin, Jewish Women and Baghdadi Men: A Reading in the Jewish Iraqi Journal al-Misbah

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Orit Bashkin
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Apparent Contradiction ◽  
British Mandate ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
State Institutions

This chapter provides a detailed reading of al-Misbah, a Jewish Iraqi publication which appeared in Baghdad between the years 1924 and 1929 and has been characterised both as a Zionist mouthpiece and a testimony to the success of Arab nationalism. In addressing this apparent contradiction, the chapter examines the issues which dominated its pages in order to highlight the identity of the paper and to enrich our understanding of the Iraqi press under the British Mandate. The chapter addresses two discursive circles – the Iraqi and the Jewish – and proposes that al-Misbah conveyed an unmistakable Iraqi and Arab identity. Despite the editor’s Zionist inclinations, the conversations between readers and writers acquired a life of their own and the paper, in fact, promoted a new Arab Jewish identity and illustrated how Jews sought to use state institutions as venues for the cultivation of non-sectarian and democratic citizenship.

Wilde Crimes: The Art of Murder and Decadent (Homo)Sexuality in Gyles Brandreth's Oscar Wilde Series

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-182
Author(s):  
Susanne Gruss
Keyword(s):  
Oscar Wilde ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Sherlock Holmes ◽  
The Real ◽  
Victorian Fiction ◽  
Historical Detail

Gyles Brandreth's Oscar Wilde novels (2007–12) appropriate Wilde for a neo-Victorian crime series in which the sharp-witted aestheticist serves as a detective à la Sherlock Holmes. This article explores Brandreth's art of adapting Wilde (both the man and the works) and English decadent culture on several levels. The novels can, of course, be read as traditional crime mysteries: while readers follow Wilde as detective, they are simultaneously prompted to decipher the ‘truth’ of biographical and cultural/historical detail. At the same time, the mysteries revolve around Wilde's scandalous (homo)sexuality and thus his masculinity. The novels remain curiously cautious when it comes to the depiction of Wilde as homosexual: all novels showcase Wilde's marriage, Constance's virtues, and Oscar's love for his children, and the real ‘Somdomites’ are the murderers he pursues. By portraying these criminals and their crimes, the novels evade the less comfortable, transgressive aspects of Wilde's sexuality and help to reduce him to a thoroughly amusing decadent suitable for a general reading public. Brandreth's novels can therefore be read as a decidedly conservative account of Wilde's masculinity for the market of neo-Victorian fiction.

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