Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2008, Germanic Languages and Literatures

Black Ashkenaz and the Almost Promised Land: Yiddish Literature and the Harlem Renaissance explores the relationship between African Americans and Eastern European immigrant Jews (Yiddish-speaking / Ashkenazic Jews) by examining the depictions of each in their respective literatures. The thrust of this project addresses the representations of African Americans in Yiddish literature. An investigation of the depictions of Jews by Harlem Renaissance writers can contribute to the understanding of an African American/Yiddish interface in which attitudes towards each other are played and written out. This linkage of African American and Jewish history, traditions and reflections regarding identity, culture, and language appears at a significant point in the grand narrative of ethnicity and race ideology in the United States. For Yiddish writers, their works regarding African Americans revealed their projection of what it meant to be Black, just as those of Harlem Renaissance writers projected their concept of what it meant to be Jewish, all in a milieu which saw the redefinition of what it meant to be black, to be white, and to be American. Yiddish writers addressed concepts of Blackness and Jewishness with an understanding of what could be gained or lost; the push to become American, the opportunity for social, political and economic mobility and racial alterity was countered by the pull of conflict with respect to assimilation, American conceptualization of exclusion based upon race, and a Jewish consciousness which rejected both.

Committee: David Miller PhD (Committee Chair); Neil Jacobs PhD (Committee Member); Bernd Fischer PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; American Literature; Black History; Comparative Literature; Judaic Studies; Literature; Minority and Ethnic Groups

Bachelor of Music, Capital University, 2022, Music

Theatre is an art form with the capacity to enact real change in our communities. Because of the wide array of topics theatre explores, it can help us to hold up a mirror to real life, critique and comment on proceedings within it, hold space for human emotion and therefore catharsis, and get viewers invested in a good story. This begs a responsibility for theatrical professionals to tie in aspects of community outreach to create a more enriching show, and harness the true power of this art form. In this project, I will be producing and directing Indecent, as well as creating opportunities for community outreach through talkbacks, service projects, and campus engagement opportunities. I will be creating a directorial concept, choosing actors, designing a rehearsal plan, finding costumes, set design elements, lighting, sound, and anything else needed to produce the show, all while organizing the opportunities for community engagement, complementary to the show's themes of LGBTQ+ rights and the history of Yiddish theatre. I have received permission also to conduct interviews and surveys of audience members directly after the show as well as check-ins to measure how the themes resonated with them, and later, how they have noticed them appear in their lives since, or any changes they have made. In the final paper in the execution semester, I will then explore these effects through the findings of this production and outreach components to demonstrate that theatre has the ability, and therefore responsibility to benefit others.

Committee: Joshua Borths (Advisor); Jens Hemmingsen (Advisor); Chad Payton (Advisor) Subjects: Art Criticism; Art Education; Art History; Arts Management; Behavioral Psychology; Communication; Curricula; Curriculum Development; Dance; Demographics; Design; East European Studies; Education; Education Philosophy; Educational Evaluation; Educational Psychology; Educational Sociology; Educational Theory; Ethics; European History; European Studies; Fine Arts; Folklore; Foreign Language; Gender; Gender Studies; Higher Education; Higher Education Administration; History; Holocaust Studies; Industrial Arts Education; Intellectual Property; Judaic Studies; Marketing; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Modern History; Modern Literature; Music; Music Education; Performing Arts; Personal Relationships; Social Research; Social Work; Teacher Education; Teaching; Theater; Theater History; Theater Studies; Theology; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Theatre

The relatively short but richly dynamic history of Yiddish-language dramatic literature is intrinsically tied to efforts by European Jewish intellectuals and artists to explore Jewish identity and its changes under the influence of modernization. As Tsarist pogroms under Nicholas II and other political and economic pressures led to massive waves of Jewish immigration to the United States, these modernizing forces became increasingly strong as Ashkenazi Jews created a new life in New York. Throughout these changes, Yiddish-language playwrights and theatre artists repeatedly turned to physical, cognitive, and emotional disabilities as metaphors for the social and legal disabilities faced by Jews in both the “old” and “new” worlds. From portraying anti-modernization Hasidic Jews as “diseased” by their superstitions in both mind and body to tragic rabbinical figures destroyed by their disabilities to Jewish heroes rising above the external pressures of their obstacles, playwrights used the challenges and social “Othering” of disability to explore, encourage, and lament the swiftly changing cultural identity of the “new Jew.”

Committee: Stratos Constantinidis Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Naomi Brenner Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Beth Kattelman Ph.D. (Committee Member); Mandy Fox M.F.A. (Committee Member); Theodora Dragostnova Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Judaic Studies; Performing Arts; Theater; Theater History; Theater Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2018, Musicology

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Cleveland, Ohio became an increasingly important destination for European immigrants and African American migrants from the rural South. The blossoming industrial metropolis promised newcomers job opportunities, upward social and economic mobility, and a thriving arts culture. By 1920, the city was checkered with ethnic neighborhoods that tempered local and national assimilation efforts with vibrant cultural institutions, including parochial schools, churches, ethnic newspapers, and sites of entertainment. For new arrivals, the music and drama of neighborhood theaters aided in their negotiation of individual, communal, and national identities at a time when assimilatory pressures were increasingly prevalent. In this dissertation, I examine Cleveland's diasporic music theater traditions— namely German, Yiddish, African American, and Slovenian—and their connection to issues of ethnicity and immigration. As a diverse, multi-ethnic city, Cleveland hosted a variety of theatrical traditions, but these four stand out due to their ties to prominent communities in the city and their rise in popularity in the early twentieth century. Surveying the commercial culture of these groups, their texts and practices, I offer evidence of how the theater constructed, represented, and reflected the identities of its audience. As I argue, the theater afforded immigrants and migrants the opportunity to witness and even participate in the construction of an ethnic-American identity. While the ethnic groups I study used the theater as a way to celebrate, preserve, and instruct—and, of course, entertain—they each navigated issues of identity in unique ways. For Slovenians facing the disappearance of their homeland after the 1918 formation of Yugoslavia, they sought to maintain cultural distinctiveness; peasant Jews from Eastern Europe worked to adopt American customs and adapt to their new urban environment; African Americans in the (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Daniel Goldmark (Committee Chair); Georgia Cowart (Committee Member); Susan McClary (Committee Member); John Grabowski (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; American Studies; Black Studies; Ethnic Studies; History; Judaic Studies; Music; Slavic Studies; Theater History; Theater Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1979, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: History

Master of Music, University of Akron, 2015, Music-History and Literature

A comprehensive history of the development of the music repertoire collectively known as the Great American Songbook. This paper traces the roots of the Songbook from its beginnings with European immigrants. It follows the development and refinement of the American Jazz Standard, tracing its roots from European operetta, to Yiddish theater, and African-American music. Finally, the paper explains how these disparate styles coalesced to create what became the Broadway Musical, following its development from 1920 through 1965 and presenting biographical information on the main contributors to this medium.

Committee: Brooks Toliver Dr. (Advisor); William Guegold Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Black Studies; Fine Arts; Judaic Studies; Mass Media; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Motion Pictures; Music; Music Education; Theater Studies

PHD, Kent State University, 2014, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

JOHNSON, SETH WILLIAM, Ph.D., May 2014 ENGLISH HISTORY, MYTH AND SECULARISM ACROSS THE BORDERLANDS: THE WORK OF MICHAEL CHABON (317 PP.) Director of Dissertation: Lewis Fried From the publication of his Master's thesis turned first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon has enjoyed immense critical and commercial success. Yet, to date, scholarship has remained in its infancy. This study traces two common and related themes as they evolve throughout his career: his celebration of genre fiction and his exploration of the intersection between the secular--Jewish, American-Jewish and unhyphenated American culture--and the sacred. The blending of often ghettoized genres, such as science fiction, mystery, comic books and horror, with sacred texts, stories and folklore both elevates the so-called "lower" art forms and reengages history, myth and sacred stories as merely literary genres with an enhanced cultural significance. In addition, this dissertation seeks to illuminate Chabon's representation of Jewishness in America, throughout his body of work. Chabon consistently raises questions regarding the nature of Judaism in America, asking whether one's Jewishness can be largely cultural or whether it is necessarily defined by religious adherence. Though many of Chabon's characters may not be overtly religious, they have not forgotten their roots. Chabon depicts a generation of American Jews who are more comfortable with their place in America, than many of the American-Jewish writers who came before him. He sees contemporary American Jewish culture as one that maintains its traditions and celebrates its history, but can exist outside of religion, in which American Jews can be both Jewish and largely secular. This project aims to show that Chabon is part of a continuum that is constantly reassessing American Judaism, and in good company with his many American-Jewish literary predecessors (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Lewis Fried Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Babacar M'Baye Ph.D. (Committee Member); Yoshinobu Hakutani Ph.D. (Committee Member); Sara Newman Ph.D. (Committee Member); Carol Salus Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature; American Studies; Bible; Literature; Religion