Sounding Orthodox: Expressive Culture and Religious Orthodoxy

• In Event: Jewish Orthodoxies: Social Science Perspectives

Abstract

Talal Asad’s notion of the “discursive tradition” is a helpful way of accounting for the diversity of the religious beliefs, practices, and ideals that are referred to as “Orthodox.” In this talk, I argue for the importance of understanding expressive culture as discourse in order to develop a more complete understanding of religious Orthodoxy, specifically Orthodox Judaism. In this five-minute presentation, I will unpack one anecdote regarding a dispute over the Orthodox identity of a song in order to uncover the issues of authority, gender, and power that are implicated in these definitional questions. I show that expressive culture “connects variously with the formation of moral selves, the manipulation of populations (or resistance to it), and the production of appropriate knowledges” (Asad 1986:10), and, following Samuli Schielke’s critique of the literature on Islam as a discursive tradition, does so through a medium that is not purely devotional or advocative. Through this exploration I wish to open up conversation about the nature of the discourses and traditions that we study when investigating Jewish Orthodoxy, and if increased attention to Orthodox expressive culture might call into question certain assumptions that we may have about this analytical category.

Author

• Gordon Alex Dale, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion