Periodic Reporting for period 1 - POYESIS (Perspectives on Yiddish Cultural Evolution and Its Legacy: Visual Arts, Theatre, and Songwriting Between Assimilation and Identity. A Case Study)
Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2024-08-31
After the Russian pogroms of the early 20th century, many Jewish people emigrated from Russia to Europe and the US, a phenomenon that caused the decline of entire communities and the dissolution of much of their culture. In just a decade, several Jewish artists, writers, and actors moved to New York and started to gain recognition. Why was their contribution so essential? To shed light on this aspect, one must first address even more complex problems: what has remained of that culture? How did it meld with New York culture and society reshaping itself? Writer Sholem Aleichem wrote about the dissolution of the Yiddish world and its rebirth in the US in his final novel, modeling his main character, Motl, on his youngest son, Numa, later known as artist Norman Raeben. Even more so than Motl, Raeben can serve as a case study to understand the evolution of Yiddish culture and art from the early 20th century to now.
The reasons for Raeben to be a reference point for the Jewish American circles lie in his conception of art as an act of “poiesis”. With this word, Raeben summarized the idea that the creative process can be both a transdisciplinary artistic method and a means to (re)discuss and (re)create identity and memory. POYESIS aims to study such poetics and how they were translated and brought forth by Raeben’s students and collaborators in their field, with a specific focus on Stella Adler, Bob Dylan, and Roz Jacobs. The impact of this interdisciplinary method offers a common thread suitable for further deepening the knowledge of Yiddish cultural evolution, linking visual arts, music, literature, theater, and cinema. POYESIS will achieve this objective by creating and disseminating the Norman Raeben collection through a digital catalog and organizing an international conference and a painting exhibition.
The reasons for Raeben to be a reference point for the Jewish American circles lie in his conception of art as an act of “poiesis”. With this word, Raeben summarized the idea that the creative process can be both a transdisciplinary artistic method and a means to (re)discuss and (re)create identity and memory. POYESIS aims to study such poetics and how they were translated and brought forth by Raeben’s students and collaborators in their field, with a specific focus on Stella Adler, Bob Dylan, and Roz Jacobs. The impact of this interdisciplinary method offers a common thread suitable for further deepening the knowledge of Yiddish cultural evolution, linking visual arts, music, literature, theater, and cinema. POYESIS will achieve this objective by creating and disseminating the Norman Raeben collection through a digital catalog and organizing an international conference and a painting exhibition.
During the first two-month secondment* at Ca’ Foscari, I was introduced to the Department of Humanities and my supervisor’s research network. I wrote the career development plan, trained in ethical issues, and submitted an ethical statement to the Ca’ Foscari Ethics Committee. I also researched and compiled a bibliography while receiving training in contemporary art history.
From months three and five, I started working at the Department of Germanic Languages. I participated in the MMLA 2022 conference and joined a panel discussing the representation of time in Dylan’s work, presenting the paper “No Time to Think: (Re)Writing Time”. I submitted my ethics assessment to Columbia and completed six training courses on data collection, human subject protection, and research management. I also updated and submitted my data management plan and ethics statement, began training in Yiddish literature, and released an interview for “The Followup News” on Raeben and Bob Dylan’s art.
In months six and seven, I continued my Yiddish training, started gathering materials on Raeben, and presented a paper on Raeben’s art and his influence on Dylan’s “Retrospectrum” exhibit at the MAXXI Museum in Rome. I also prepared and taught a seminar on the project’s initial results at the NeMLA 2023 conference.
Between months eight and ten, I finished training in Yiddish language and culture. I studied Raeben’s influence on Dylan by conducting research at the Bob Dylan Archive and presented the results at the 2023 World of Bob Dylan Symposium.
In month eleven, I continued gathering materials from Raeben’s students, completed my Art History and Curatorship training, and worked on an essay about Raeben’s influence on Dylan.
In months twelve and thirteen, I submitted the essay “No Time to Think” to the open-access journal “L’Ulisse”. I further deepened my training in Jewish studies, starting to attend the course “Readings in Jewish Literature”. I finished studying Dylan’s manuscripts and presented a paper on some of the results titled “When I Paint My Masterpiece” at the PCAS / ACAS 2023 conference. I also finished digitizing Raeben’s materials and released an interview broadcasted by Radio Ca’ Foscari in the Veneto Night event.
From months fourteen to eighteen, I focused on editing Raeben’s works and studying his influence on actress Stella Adler and artist Roz Jacobs’ cutting-edge educational program, the Memory Project, which fosters Holocaust memory through art. I presented a paper on Raeben’s influence on the film “Renaldo & Clara” at the 2023 PAMLA annual conference and one on his influence on the Memory Project at the Association for Jewish Studies’ 55th annual conference. I also presented the paper “Through the Eyes of the Cantor’s Son”, focusing on Yiddish emigration and diaspora in Sholem Aleichem’s last novel, at the NEMLA 2024 Conference, completed a poster presentation at the 2024 Columbia University Postdoctoral Research Symposium, and presented the paper “Norman Raeben and the New York Yiddish Cultural Milieus” at the 2024 Western Jewish Studies Association Conference.
From month nineteen to month twenty-four, I began creating the digital catalog of Raeben’s works, curating the exhibition, and devising the related international conference. I also published another article entitled “Songwriting Tradition and the Interpretive Talent” in the open-access journal “Cahiers de littérature orale”.
From months three and five, I started working at the Department of Germanic Languages. I participated in the MMLA 2022 conference and joined a panel discussing the representation of time in Dylan’s work, presenting the paper “No Time to Think: (Re)Writing Time”. I submitted my ethics assessment to Columbia and completed six training courses on data collection, human subject protection, and research management. I also updated and submitted my data management plan and ethics statement, began training in Yiddish literature, and released an interview for “The Followup News” on Raeben and Bob Dylan’s art.
In months six and seven, I continued my Yiddish training, started gathering materials on Raeben, and presented a paper on Raeben’s art and his influence on Dylan’s “Retrospectrum” exhibit at the MAXXI Museum in Rome. I also prepared and taught a seminar on the project’s initial results at the NeMLA 2023 conference.
Between months eight and ten, I finished training in Yiddish language and culture. I studied Raeben’s influence on Dylan by conducting research at the Bob Dylan Archive and presented the results at the 2023 World of Bob Dylan Symposium.
In month eleven, I continued gathering materials from Raeben’s students, completed my Art History and Curatorship training, and worked on an essay about Raeben’s influence on Dylan.
In months twelve and thirteen, I submitted the essay “No Time to Think” to the open-access journal “L’Ulisse”. I further deepened my training in Jewish studies, starting to attend the course “Readings in Jewish Literature”. I finished studying Dylan’s manuscripts and presented a paper on some of the results titled “When I Paint My Masterpiece” at the PCAS / ACAS 2023 conference. I also finished digitizing Raeben’s materials and released an interview broadcasted by Radio Ca’ Foscari in the Veneto Night event.
From months fourteen to eighteen, I focused on editing Raeben’s works and studying his influence on actress Stella Adler and artist Roz Jacobs’ cutting-edge educational program, the Memory Project, which fosters Holocaust memory through art. I presented a paper on Raeben’s influence on the film “Renaldo & Clara” at the 2023 PAMLA annual conference and one on his influence on the Memory Project at the Association for Jewish Studies’ 55th annual conference. I also presented the paper “Through the Eyes of the Cantor’s Son”, focusing on Yiddish emigration and diaspora in Sholem Aleichem’s last novel, at the NEMLA 2024 Conference, completed a poster presentation at the 2024 Columbia University Postdoctoral Research Symposium, and presented the paper “Norman Raeben and the New York Yiddish Cultural Milieus” at the 2024 Western Jewish Studies Association Conference.
From month nineteen to month twenty-four, I began creating the digital catalog of Raeben’s works, curating the exhibition, and devising the related international conference. I also published another article entitled “Songwriting Tradition and the Interpretive Talent” in the open-access journal “Cahiers de littérature orale”.
The first results include the retracement of a substantial collection of never-before-shown works by Raeben and a corpus of unpublished materials from his lessons. These materials provided the basis for understanding his career, teaching activities, and influence. His paintings are in the process of being published in an open-access catalog. I am also currently curating the first retrospective exhibition of his work at the Jewish Museum in Venice. These results will reassess his character and provide new information about his collaboration with American Jewish artists and the history and evolution of Yiddish culture and art.
Moreover, the study of Dylan’s manuscripts at the Bob Dylan Archive evidenced the strong influence of Raeben: Dylan invented a creative writing technique that transposes Raeben’s methodology into songwriting. The manuscripts prove that “Blood on the Tracks” and various songs belonging to subsequent albums were written by adopting Raeben’s artistic palimpsest, which Dylan also used to devise the films “Renaldo and Clara.”
The research has also provided an analysis of Raeben’s impact on the Memory Project, which will be published in a specific article. The results significantly improve the understanding of this cutting-edge educational methodology, which provides new means to address the problems of integration, emigration, memory, and cultural preservation through an interdisciplinary approach adopted by educators and cultural institutions in 57 countries worldwide.
Moreover, the study of Dylan’s manuscripts at the Bob Dylan Archive evidenced the strong influence of Raeben: Dylan invented a creative writing technique that transposes Raeben’s methodology into songwriting. The manuscripts prove that “Blood on the Tracks” and various songs belonging to subsequent albums were written by adopting Raeben’s artistic palimpsest, which Dylan also used to devise the films “Renaldo and Clara.”
The research has also provided an analysis of Raeben’s impact on the Memory Project, which will be published in a specific article. The results significantly improve the understanding of this cutting-edge educational methodology, which provides new means to address the problems of integration, emigration, memory, and cultural preservation through an interdisciplinary approach adopted by educators and cultural institutions in 57 countries worldwide.