By Shira Schwartz. A central theme of My Unorthodox Life, the latest release in the genre of Unorthodox Media, is the presumption, acquisition and staging of “choice,” often paired with its close cousins, “freedom” and “self.” The liberal language of choice is a critical feature not only of OTD media, but of OTD life. (See […]
By Shira Schwartz. This collection includes a number of responses by Jewish studies scholars to Netflix’s reality show My Unorthodox Life, released in June 2021. When I first conceived of this collection, I wanted to highlight the significance of this latest release in ex/post Orthodox Jewish media, which, as a hyperbolic reality television series, may […]
By Tamisha A. Tyler. At the beginning of 2020 I wrote a tweet that stated, “The Parable Series by Octavia Butler is your required reading for 2020. You think Handmaids Tale got close, you ain’t read nothing yet.” I did not anticipate how well that tweet would age. If the last two years have taught […]
By Miriam Moster. Watching My Unorthodox Life on Netflix, a reality tv series that showcases Julia Haart’s successful fashion career as she and her family grapple with leaving the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community, there were many things I could relate to, raised as I was in a similar community to the one Haart left behind. The […]
We want to hear your responses to FSR Blog’s @theTable: “FSR Summer Book Club” The “FSR Summer Book Club” series started off Summer with a bang! Holly Hillgardner started off the series with an introduction to the stunning novel, Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi. Second, Rev. Mia McClain suggests that you read a classic play this summer through […]
By Jimmy Hoke. “Is a virus not a kind of zombie, a quasi life-form moving in and out of inertness? It is zombie time…” –Lorrie Moore, New Yorker, April 13, 2020 It is “zombie time”—or time to think with zombies. While the spread of Covid might provide a particularly poignant moment for reading stories that […]
By Christy Cobb. In the past year, the fragment called the “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” has received a resurgence of attention in popular media, after the journalist Ariel Saber published the book Veritas which outlines the discovery of the papyrus as well as the complicated path that ultimately revealed this fragment as a forgery. Yet […]
By Mia McClain. “And then there are all those prophets who would lead us out of the wilderness—into the swamps!” –Beneatha Younger, A Raisin in the Sun Last November, I prepared a special dinner and excitedly sat down to watch the highly anticipated film version of August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Released on […]
By Holly Hillgardner. I played a game with Yaa Gyasi’s second novel that helped get me through the demands of the fall 2020 semester. If you teach, perhaps the game might be somewhat familiar? A certain number of graded assignments resulted in my indulging in a treat: sometimes chocolate, sometimes five minutes of TikTok; but, […]
Summer is here! For many of us, summer can be a season of exploration: whether we are taking a vacation, thinking about a new project, imagining new courses, or trying something new at a Farmer’s Market. The first weeks of summer are also when some of us get excited about making new lists: projects to […]