Jonathan Boyarin, "Waiting for a Jew: Marginal Redemption at the
Eighth Street Shul" and:
For more assignment ideas involving this essay, please visit the Boyarin
link-o-mat.
Power, Civilization, and the Self (Assignment 1)
In “Waiting for a Jew” Jonathan Boyarin suggests that it is the very marginality of the Eighth Street Shul that enables (or allows) him to develop a “transcultural” self. Do you agree with Boyarin that “communities on the edge of mass society” may be the best places in which to develop such an identity? Why or why not? What is the value of transcultural selfhood?
Please remember to address all three questions, and be sure to include at least one quotation from Boyarin in each paragraph.
Anthony Alms, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From Power, Civilization, and the Self.
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Boyarin and Krakauer: The Search for Identity
In "Waiting for a Jew," Jonathan Boyarin travels from New York
to Paris to Jerusalem to Los Angeles, tracking the various ways that he
is received and the varying ways he comes to identify himself as Jewish.
In Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer describes a rather different spiritual
journey: Cris McCandless' voyage from Atlanta to Mexico, up through California
and Canada on to Alaska. What is the difference, would you say, between
Boyarin's search and McCandless' search? What role does tradition play
in the search for identity?
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Jonathan Boyarin and Oliver Sacks
Both Boyarin, in "Waiting for a Jew: Marginal Redemption at the Eighth Street Shul", and Sacks, in The Mind's Eye: What the Blind See, act as observers attempting to make sense of alien worlds. While Sacks watches, as it were, from the outside, Boyarin often alternates between the roles of actor and spectator.
How does the status of the observer, with respect to the system under observation, affect the nature of observations made and what implications does this have for an observer attempting to understand him/herself?
Monika Krishan, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From “Identity” Lies in the Eye of the Beholder.
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Jonathan Boyarin, Oliver Sacks, and Robert Thurman
Use Boyarin’s Waiting for a Jew: Marginal Redemption at the Eighth Street Shul by and Sacks’ The Mind's Eye: What the Blind See, to show how consistently excelling at a chosen endeavor, as opposed to being “average” at it, might prevent one from attaining the ideal of selflessness as described by Robert Thurman in Wisdom.
Things to think about:
How does being “average” make one feel?
What does being “average” at something prompt one to do?
What are the personal drawbacks of being skilled in one’s chosen profession or at any task, in general?
What are some of the positive outcomes of failure?
What does a novice have that an “expert” lacks?
What changes when one transforms into the other?
Can one choose to relinquish an ability?
Why is it hard for an “expert” to act otherwise?
What steps must you take to strengthen your less dominant hand?
Monika Krishan, Rutgers University, Fall 2005
From “Identity” Lies in the Eye of the Beholder.
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