Books published by Wayne State University Press

Analyses how the HBO television series Treme treads new ground by engaging with historical events and their traumatic aftermaths. Instead of building up to a devastating occurrence, David Simon's drama unfolds with characters coping in the wake of catastrophe, in a mode of what Fisher explores as a prevailing mode of "afterness".

In 1908, Solomon Schechter published his groundbreaking essay on the city of Safed (Tzfat) during the sixteenth century. In The Legend of Safed, Eli Yassif utilizes "new historicism" methodology in order to use the non-canonical materials to better understand the culture of Safed.

This anthology of plays by Tess Onwueme, one of the bright new literary artists in contemporary drama, allows a glimpse into the lives of the people of Onwueme's native Nigeria and reveals the range and beauty of Nigerian culture. At the same time, Three Plays sheds light on the reality of the human condition and the conflicts that arise between the individual and society.

Kadya Molodwsky (1894-1975) was among the most accomplished and prolific of modern Yiddish poets, having published six major books of poetry, as well as fiction, plays, essays, and children's tales. This is a retrospective survey of her poetry and a book-length translation of her work.

Uses critical race theory to discuss American films that embrace contemporary issues of race, sexuality, class, and gender. Its linear history chronicles black-oriented narrative film from post-World War II through the presidential administration of Barack Obama.

Uses critical race theory to discuss American films that embrace contemporary issues of race, sexuality, class, and gender. Its linear history chronicles black-oriented narrative film from post-World War II through the presidential administration of Barack Obama.

Examines pantomime and theatricality in nineteenth-century histories of folklore and the fairy tale. In nineteenth-century Britain, the spectacular and highly profitable theatrical form known as "pantomime" was part of a shared cultural repertoire and a significant medium for the transmission of stories, especially fairy tales.

Joseph H. Lewis enjoyed a monumental career in many genres, including film noir and B-movies, as well as an extensive and often overlooked TV career. Rhodes gathers notable scholars from around the globe to examine the full range of Lewis's career. While some studies analyse Lewis's work in different areas, others focus on particular films, ranging from poverty row fare to westerns and TV films.

BThe religious communities of early modern Eastern Europe-particularly those with a mystical bent-are typically studied in isolation. Yet the heavy Slavic imprint on Jewish popular mysticism and pervasive Judaizing tendencies among Christian dissenters call into question the presumed binary quality of Jewish-Christian interactions. In Holy Dissent: Jewish and Christian Mystics in Eastern Europe, editor Glenn Dynner presents twelve essays that chart contacts, parallels, and mutual influences between Jewish and Christian mystics. With cutting-edge research on folk healers, messianists, Hasidim, and Christian sectarians, this volume presents instances of rich cultural interchange and bold border transgression.Holy Dissent is divided into two sections: "Jewish Mystics in a Christian World" and "Christianizing Jews, Judaizing Christians." In these essays, readers learn that Jewish and Christian folk healers consulted each other and learned from common sources; that the founder of Hasidism, Rabbi Israel Ba'al Shem Tov, likely drew inspiration from Christian ascetics; that Christian peasants sought and obtained audience with Hasidic masters; that Jewish mystics openly Christianized; and that Christian mystics openly Judaized. In contrast to prevailing models that present Jewish and Christian cultures as either rigidly autonomous or ambiguously hybrid, Holy Dissent charts specific types of religio-cultural exchange and broadens our conception of how cultures interact.The scholarship in this volume is notably fresh and significant and makes an important contribution across disciplines. Jewish and Christian studies scholars as well as historians of Eastern Europe will benefit from the analysis of Holy Dissent.

O City of Byzantium is the first English translation of a history which chronicles the period of Byzantine history from 1118 to 1207. The historian Niketas Choniates provides an eye-witness account of the inexorable events that led to the destruction of the longest lived Christian empire in history, and to the ultimate catastrophe of the fall of Constantinople in 1204 to the Fourth Crusade. For the student of the Middles Ages who cannot read Greek, and for the historians and the general public, this volume contains one of the most important historical accounts of the Middle Ages. Recorded in detail are the political, economic, social, and religious causes of alienation between the Latin West and the Greek East that separated the two halves of the Christian world and broke apart the great bulwark of European civilization.

Study of a vital immigrant institution and the formation of American ethnic identity.

Unfolds the history of Jewish immigration, segregation, and integration; of Jewry's cultural exclusiveness and assimilation; of its internal division and indivisible unity; and of its role in the making of America. This third volume covers the period from 1860 to 1920.

Unfolds the history of Jewish immigration, segregation, and integration; of Jewry's cultural exclusiveness and assimilation; of its internal division and indivisible unity; and of its role in the making of America. This second volume of this seminal work on American Jewry covers the period from 1841 to 1860.

Between 1800 and 1880 approximately 6,500 Dutch Jews emigrated to the United States to join the hundreds who had come during the colonial era. The Forerunners offers the first detailed history of the emigration of Dutch Jews to the United States and to the whole American diaspora.

Within two years of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, an astounding 45,000 of Bulgaria's 50,000 Jews left voluntarily for Israel. From Sofia to Jaffa chronicles the fascinating saga of a population relocated, a story that has not been told until now.

Takes a measured approach to one of the most emotional issues in American Jewish historiography: the response of American Jews to Nazism and the extermination of European Jewry. Aaron Berman tries to understand the constraints within which American Jews operated and what opportunities - if any - they had to respond to Hitler.