Download or read book Identity Place and Subversion in Contemporary Mizrahi Cinema in Israel written by Yaron Shemer and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2013-07-30 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Identity, Place, and Subversion in Contemporary Mizrahi Cinema in Israel , Yaron Shemer presents the most comprehensive and systematic study to date of Mizrahi (Oriental-Jewish or Arab-Jewish) films produced in Israel in the last several decades. Through an analysis of dozens of films the book illustrates how narratives, characters, and space have been employed to give expression to Mizrahi ethnic identity and to situate the Mizrahi within the broader context of the Israeli societal fabric. The struggle over identity and the effort to redraw ethnic boundaries have taken place against the backdrop of a long-standing Zionist view of the Mizrahi as an inferior other whose “Levantine” culture posed a threat to the Western-oriented Zionist enterprise. In its examination of the nature and dynamics of Mizrahi cinema (defined by subject-matter), the book engages the sensitive topic of Mizrahi ethnicity head-on, confronting the conventional notion of Israeli society as a melting pot and the widespread dismissal of ethnic divisions in the country. Shemer explores the continuous marginalization of the Mizrahi in contemporary Israeli cinema and the challenge some Mizrahi films offer to the subjugation of this ethnic group. He also studies the role cultural policies and institutional power in Israel have played in shaping Mizrahi cinema and the creation of a Mizrahi niche in cinema. In a broader sense, this pioneering work is a probing exploration of Israeli culture and society through the prism of film and cinematic expression. It sheds light on the play of ethnicity, class, gender, and religion in contemporary Israel, and on the heated debates surrounding Zionist ideology and identity politics. By charting a new territory of academic inquiry grounded in an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, the study contributes to the formation of “Mizrahi Cinema” as a recognized and vibrant scholarly field.

Download or read book Identity Place and Subversion in Contemporary Mizrahi Cinema written by Yaron Shemer and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Contemporary Israeli Cinema written by Raz Yosef and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-12-30 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through analysis of the complex discourse surrounding trauma and loss, this book provides a necessary examination of temporality and ethics in Israeli film and television since the turn of the millennium. The author examines posttraumatic idioms of fragmentation and incoherence, highlighting the rising resistance towards generic categories, and the turn to unconventional and paradoxical structures with unique aesthetics. Maintaining that contemporary Israeli cinema has undergone an ethical shift, the author examines the revealing traumas and denied identities that also seek alternative ways to confront ethical question of accountability. It discusses the relationships between trauma, nationalism, and cinema through the intertwined perspectives of feminism, queer theory, and critical race and postcolonial studies, showing how national traumas are constructed by notions of gendered, sexual, and racial identity. This innovative text highlights the complexities of discourse surrounding trauma and loss, informed by multiple categories of difference. Across each chapter various elements of Israeli film are explored, spanning from strategies used to critically examine victim-perpetrator dynamics, co-existence in temporal space, women’s cinema in Israel, displacement, and queer communities and identity. Beyond its direct contribution to cinema studies and Israel studies, the book will be of interest to trauma and memory studies, postcolonial studies, gender and sexuality studies, Jewish studies, Middle Eastern studies, and cultural studies.

Download or read book Orientalism Gender and the Jews written by Ulrike Brunotte and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2014-12-16 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originating in the collaboration of the international Research Network “Gender in Antisemitism, Orientalism and Occidentalism” (RENGOO), this collection of essays proposes to intervene in current debates about historical constructions of Jewish identity in relation to colonialism and Orientalism. The network‌’s collaborative research addresses imaginative and aesthetic rather than sociological questions with particular focus on the function of gender and sexuality in literary, scholarly and artistic transformations of Orientalist images. RENGOO’s first publication explores the ways in which stereotypes of the external and internal Other intertwine. With its interrogation of the roles assumed in this interplay by gender, processes of sexualization, and aesthetic formations, the volume suggests new directions to the interdisciplinary study of gender, antisemitism, and Orientalism.

Download or read book Israeli Bourekas Films written by Rami Kimchi and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-03 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A genre of comic melodramas produced in the 1960s and '70s, Bourekas films are among the most popular films ever made in Israel. In Israeli Bourekas Films, author and filmmaker Rami Kimchi sets out a history of Bourekas films and discusses their origin. Kimchi considers the representation of Sephardi or Mizrahi Jews in the films, noting that the material culture reflected in the the films presented a culture that was closer to the European Yiddish culture than to the Middle Eastern world of the Mizrahim. Kimchi reflects on the enormous popularity and commercial success of Bourekas films, uncovers how they were made, who made them and why, and discusses the impact of the films on Israeli cinema today. Israeli Bourekas Films is a film insider's view of the characters, stories, and cultures that made Bourekas films such an important part of Israeli life.

Download or read book Warriors Witches Whores written by Rachel S. Harris and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-16 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Feminist reading of women’s representation and activism in Israeli cinema. Warriors, Witches, Whores: Women in Israeli Cinema is a feminist study of Israel’s film industry and the changes that have occurred since the 1990s. Working in feminist film theory, the book adopts a cultural studies approach, considering the creation of a female-centered and thematically feminist film culture in light of structural and ideological shifts in Israeli society. Author Rachel S. Harris situates these changes in dialogue with the cinematic history that preceded them and the ongoing social inequalities that perpetuate women’s marginalization within Israeli society. While no one can deny Israel’s Western women’s advancements, feminist filmmakers frequently turn to Israel’s less impressive underbelly as sources for their inspiration. Their films have focused on sexism, the negative impact of militarism on women’s experience, rape culture, prostitution, and sexual abuse. These films also tend to include subjects from society’s geographical periphery and social margins, such as female foreign workers, women, and refugees. Warriors, Witches, Whoresis divided into three major sections and each considers a different form of feminist engagement. The first part explores films that situate women in traditionally male spheres of militarism, considering the impact of interjecting women within hegemonic spaces or reconceptualizing them in feminist ways. The second part recovers the narratives of women’s experience that were previously marginalized or silenced, thereby creating a distinct female space that offers new kinds of storytelling and cinematic aesthetics that reflect feminist expressions of identity. The third part offers examples of feminist activism that reach beyond the boundaries of the film to comment on social issues. This section demonstrates how feminists use film (and work within the film industry) in order to position women in society. While there are thematic overlaps between the chapters, each section marks structural differences in the modes of feminist response. Warriors, Witches, Whores considers the ways social and political power have affected the representation of women and looks to how feminist filmmakers have fought against these inequities behind the camera and in the stories they tell. Students and scholars of film, gender, or cultural studies will appreciate this approachable monograph.

Download or read book Directed by God written by Yaron Peleg and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As part of its effort to forge a new secular Jewish nation, the nascent Israeli state tried to limit Jewish religiosity. However, with the steady growth of the ultraorthodox community and the expansion of the settler community, Israeli society is becoming increasingly religious. Although the arrival of religious discourse in Israeli politics has long been noticed, its cultural development has rarely been addressed. Directed by God explores how the country’s popular media, principally film and television, reflect this transformation. In doing so, it examines the changing nature of Zionism and the place of Judaism within it. Once the purview of secular culture, Israel’s media initially promoted alternatives to traditional religious expression; however, using films such as Kadosh, Waltz with Bashir, and Eyes Wide Open, Yaron Peleg shows how Israel’s contemporary film and television programs have been shaped by new religious trends and how secular Israeli culture has processed and reflected on its religious heritage. He investigates how shifting cinematic visions of Jewish masculinity and gender track transformations in the nation’s religious discourse. Moving beyond the secular/religious divide, Directed by God explores changing film and television representations of different Jewish religious groups, assessing what these representations may mean for the future of Israeli society.

Download or read book Desert in the Promised Land written by Yael Zerubavel and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-25 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A complex and fascinating portrait of Israel . . . .an engaging book that combines anthropology, culture, and history.” —Anita Shapira, author of Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel At once an ecological phenomenon and a cultural construction, the desert has varied associations within Zionist and Israeli culture. In the Judaic textual tradition, it evokes exile and punishment, yet is also a site for origin myths, the divine presence, and sanctity. Secular Zionism developed its own spin on the duality of the desert as the romantic site of Jews’ biblical roots that inspired the Hebrew culture, and as the barren land outside the Jewish settlements in Palestine, featuring them as an oasis of order and technological progress within a symbolic desert. Yael Zerubavel tells the story of the desert from the early twentieth century to the present, shedding light on romantic-mythical associations, settlement and security concerns, environmental sympathies, and the commodifying tourist gaze. Drawing on literary narratives, educational texts, newspaper articles, tourist materials, films, popular songs, posters, photographs, and cartoons, Zerubavel reveals the complexities and contradictions that mark Israeli society’s semiotics of space in relation to the Middle East, and the central role of the “besieged island” trope in Israeli culture and politics.

Download or read book A World Apart written by Yael Munk and published by Ethics International Press. This book was released on 2024-07-05 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women have been present on the Israeli screen since its inception, but have never held a central role in the narrative. The first canonical Israeli woman filmmaker, Michal Bat Adam, released her first feature film Moments in 1979, that focused on a friendship between women, a theme unexplored until then in Israeli cinema, and it is today considered as the film that opened a way for female Israeli filmmakers to realize their experiences were worth telling. Since then there has been an increasing number of female Israeli filmmakers, primarily since the turn of the Millenium. A World Apart: Contemporary Israeli Women’s Cinema is a book that explores the contributions of female Israeli filmmakers to contemporary Israeli cinema, providing an introductory background both historically and theoretically and an in-depth analysis of films produced in the 21st century. The book is divided into two parts: "Recurrent Themes and Expressions of Vulnerability in Israeli Women's Cinema" which discusses various issues in Israeli women's cinema, and "Leading Female Auteurs in Contemporary Israeli Cinema", which focuses on leading female filmmakers. The book aims to provide a comprehensive presentation and historical contextualization of contemporary Israeli women's cinema. The book is written for students and researchers in film, media, gender issues and related areas, yet employs a straightforward language that can be understood by a broader readership.

Download or read book Casting a Giant Shadow written by Rachel S. Harris and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Film came to the territory that eventually became Israel not long after the medium was born. Casting a Giant Shadow is a collection of articles that embraces the notion of transnationalism to consider the limits of what is "Israeli" within Israeli cinema. As the State of Israel developed, so did its film industries. Moving beyond the early films of the Yishuv, which focused on the creation of national identity, the industry and its transnational ties became more important as filmmakers and film stars migrated out and foreign films, filmmakers, and actors came to Israel to take advantage of high-quality production values and talent. This volume, edited by Rachel Harris and Dan Chyutin, uses the idea of transnationalism to challenge the concept of a singular definition of Israeli cinema. Casting a Giant Shadow offers a new understanding of how cinema has operated artistically and structurally in terms of funding, distribution, and reception. The result is a thorough investigation of the complex structure of the transnational and its impact on national specificity when considered on the global stage.

Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Intersectionalities written by Jennifer C. Nash and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-02-28 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Companion to Intersectionalities is a dynamic reference source to the key contemporary analytic in feminist thought: intersectionality. Comprising over 50 chapters by a diverse, international, and interdisciplinary team of contributors, the Companion is divided into nine parts: Retracing intersectional genealogies Intersectional methods and (inter)disciplinarity Intersectionality’s travels Intersectional borderwork Trans* intersectionalities Disability and intersectional embodiment Intersectional science and data studies Popular culture at the intersections Rethinking intersectional justice This accessibly written collection is essential reading for students, teachers, and researchers working in women’s and gender studies, sexuality studies, African American studies, sociology, politics, and other related subjects from across the humanities and social sciences.

Download or read book Filming History from Below written by Efrén Cuevas and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditional historical documentaries strive to project a sense of objectivity, producing a top-down view of history that focuses on public events and personalities. In recent decades, in line with historiographical trends advocating “history from below,” a different type of historical documentary has emerged, focusing on tightly circumscribed subjects, personal archives, and first-person perspectives. Efrén Cuevas categorizes these films as “microhistorical documentaries” and examines how they push cinema’s capacity as a producer of historical knowledge in new directions. Cuevas pinpoints the key features of these documentaries, identifying their parallels with written microhistory: a reduced scale of observation, a central role given to human agency, a conjectural approach to the use of archival sources, and a reliance on narrative structures. Microhistorical documentaries also use tools specific to film to underscore the affective dimension of historical narratives, often incorporating autobiographical and essayistic perspectives, and highlighting the role of the protagonists’ personal memories in the reconstruction of the past. These films generally draw from family archives, with an emphasis on snapshots and home movies. Filming History from Below examines works including Péter Forgács’s films dealing with the Holocaust such as The Maelstrom and Free Fall; documentaries about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Rithy Panh’s work on the Cambodian genocide; films about the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War such as A Family Gathering and History and Memory; and Jonas Mekas’s chronicle of migration in his diary film Lost, Lost, Lost.

Download or read book Jewish Topographies written by Julia Brauch and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-06 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How have Jews experienced their environments and how have they engaged with specific places? How do Jewish spaces emerge, how are they contested, performed and used? With these questions in mind, this anthology focuses on the production of Jewish space and lived Jewish spaces and sheds light on their diversity, inter-connectedness and multi-dimensionality. By exploring historical and contemporary case studies from around the world, the essays collected here shift the temporal focus generally applied to Jewish civilization to a spatially oriented perspective. The reader encounters sites such as the gardens cultivated in the Ghettos during World War II, the Israeli development town of Netivot, Thornhill, an Orthodox suburb of Toronto, or new virtual sites of Jewish (Second) Life on the Internet, and learns about the Jewish landkentenish movement in Interwar Poland, the Jewish connection to the sea and the culinary landscapes of Russian Jews in New York. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, with a strong foothold in cultural history and cultural anthropology, this anthology introduces new methodological and conceptual approaches to the study of the spatial aspects of Jewish civilization.

Download or read book Reel Gender written by Sa'ed Atshan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2022-10-20 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reel Gender is a groundbreaking collection that addresses the collective realities and the filmic representations of Palestinian and Israeli societies. The eight essays, by leading scholars, demonstrate how Palestinian and Israeli film production-despite obvious overlaps and similarities and while keeping in mind the inherent asymmetry of power dynamics-are at the forefront of engaging gender and sexuality. The scholars of this volume construct and deconstruct still and moving images, characters, and stories that create an entanglement of Palestinian and Israeli cinema. Together they portray the region's diverse but unexpectedly intermingled ethnic, religious, and national communities, framed or countered by various societal norms, laws, and expectations, while also defined by colonial realities. The essays draw methodologically from the fields of media and cultural studies, critical and postcolonial theory, feminism, post-feminism, and queer theory.

Download or read book Symbolism 12 13 written by Rüdiger Ahrens and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-12-12 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magic realism has become a significant mode of expression in Jewish cultural production. This special focus of Symbolism for the first time explores in a comparative and transnational approach the magic realist engagement of Jewish writers, artists, and filmmakers from the Diaspora and from Israel with issues of identity, oppression and persecution as well as the Holocaust.

Download or read book Magical Realism and Literature written by Christopher Warnes and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 730 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magical realism can lay claim to being one of most recognizable genres of prose writing. It mingles the probable and improbable, the real and the fantastic, and it provided the late-twentieth century novel with an infusion of creative energy in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and beyond. Writers such as Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, Salman Rushdie, Ben Okri, and many others harnessed the resources of narrative realism to the representation of folklore, belief, and fantasy. This book sheds new light on magical realism, exploring in detail its global origins and development. It offers new perspectives of the history of the ideas behind this literary tradition, including magic, realism, otherness, primitivism, ethnography, indigeneity, and space and time.

Download or read book Visual Syntax of Race written by Noa Hazan and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The visual representation of racial thought