The title of Naomi's research project is: Distant Proximities: Whiteness and Worldedness in Contemporary Jewish Literature
Naomi writes:
My project...brings together post-1961 Jewish texts from the United States, South Africa, Israel, and the United Kingdom in order to demonstrate how contemporary Jewish literature de- and re-constructs whiteness through a constellation of multi-layered encounters that transcend national boundaries. It aims to shift the conversation in Jewish literary studies in two ways: first, by replacing the omnipresent question, “Are Jews white?” with the ultimately more productive inquiry, “Under what conditions do Jews understand and/or write themselves as white?”, and second, by re-framing the concept of Jewish whiteness as inherently worlded, shaped by an international network of colonial histories, political commitments, and affective entanglements.