{"product_id":"9780813573861","title":"Jew","description":"\u003ci\u003eJew\u003c\/i\u003e.  The word possesses an uncanny power to provoke and unsettle. For millennia, \u003ci\u003eJew\u003c\/i\u003e has signified the consummate \u003ci\u003eOther\u003c\/i\u003e, a persistent fly in the ointment of Western civilization’s grand narratives and cultural projects. Only very recently, however, has \u003ci\u003eJew \u003c\/i\u003ebeen reclaimed as a term of self-identification and pride.   With these insights as a point of departure, this book offers a wide-ranging exploration of the key word \u003ci\u003eJew\u003c\/i\u003e—a term that lies not only at the heart of Jewish experience, but indeed at the core of Western civilization. Examining scholarly debates about the origins and early meanings of \u003ci\u003eJew\u003c\/i\u003e, Cynthia M. Baker interrogates categories like “ethnicity,” “race,” and “religion” that inevitably feature in attempts to define the word. Tracing the term’s evolution, she also illuminates its many contradictions, revealing how \u003ci\u003eJew\u003c\/i\u003e has served as a marker of materialism and intellectualism, socialism and capitalism, worldly cosmopolitanism and clannish parochialism, chosen status, and accursed stigma. Baker proceeds to explore the complex challenges that attend the modern appropriation of Jew as a term of self-identification, with forays into Yiddish language and culture, as well as meditations on \u003ci\u003eJew\u003c\/i\u003e-as-identity by contemporary public intellectuals. Finally, by tracing the phrase \u003ci\u003enew Jews\u003c\/i\u003e through a range of contexts—including the early Zionist movement, current debates about Muslim immigration to Europe, and recent sociological studies in the United States—the book provides a glimpse of what the word \u003ci\u003eJew\u003c\/i\u003e is coming to mean in an era of Internet cultures, genetic sequencing, precarious nationalisms, and proliferating identities. ","brand":"Rutgers University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47118571176176,"sku":"9780813573861","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780813573861_p0.jpg?v=1763739707","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780813573861","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}