Researcher of the Week

Emilie Amar-Zifkin

PhD Candidate
Yale University, Department of Religious Studies (Judaic Studies)
Primary Advisor: Prof. Ivan Marcus

“My PhD project, ‘Observing the Observers: Procession and Public Religion in Medieval Ashkenaz,’ brings together spatial, sensory, and performance studies in its examination of Jewish-Christian interaction in public spaces. The analysis considers questions of sensory perception and identity, while remaining sensitive to how medieval Jewish-Christian conflict and coexistence have been variously exaggerated, overlooked, or misrepresented. Drawing on my background in technical theatre, I conceptualize medieval towns and their Jewish quarters as stages: constructed spaces with their own visual, gestural, and social languages. These are the stages upon which the drama of Jewish-Christian interaction unfolded – the roles of audience, actor, and hands behind the scenes ever-changing, watching the performed identities of the inevitable Others in their midst.

The project begins by setting the stage, examining Jewish quarters in several urban centers across Ashkenaz. Considerations such as proximity, economic relationships, and overarching settlement patterns affected whether, when, and how Jews and Christians saw one another – and what they thought they were seeing when they did. In my treatment of urban space, I make use of spatial theory as well as liturgical and performance history to analyze processions – those public displays of ecclesiastical and royal power seen frequently in the streets. The entire town was affected by these displays, and my work uses a wide selection of narrative and legal Jewish and Christian sources to understand the effects of procession culture on its audiences.

My research approaches Jewish-Christian relations in the urban public sphere through a sensory studies framework. I use both historical events and more casual moments in medieval daily life to explore the role of sight in Jewish-Christian understanding and communication. My analysis also explores how sound could be wielded as an instrument of power and control, of resistance, and assertion of identity. I approach the sensory aspects of the project both as a historian and as a former theatre-maker, bringing my knowledge of practical lighting and acoustic design to bear on historical questions of how Jews and Christians perceived one another’s actions, absences, sounds and silences. The marketplace, of course, is the lively shared stage where these questions of space, visuality, and aurality come together.

The common thread running through the project is fundamentally that of performance: that of the theatre of the everyday, where visuality, seeing, and perception, both real and constructed, are crucial for coexistence. By marrying the methodologies of historical Jewish studies with those of performance, spatial, and sensory studies, and by applying their modes of inquiry to a range of public interactions, my research suggests a more complex way of being, seeing, and being seen in the urban public sphere, going beyond the easy dichotomy of victim and oppressor. This allows us access to a deeper layer of spectatorship: what did Jewish and Christian onlookers see, or think they were seeing, when they watched, heard, and perceived their neighbors playing their roles onstage, backstage, in the audience, in the theatre of the everyday? My research suggests that we begin by observing the observers.”


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Birgit Wiedl (June 29, 2022). Researcher of the Week. medievalJewishStudiesNow! Retrieved November 2, 2024 from https://doi.org/10.58079/rhpg