Scandal on the Dance Floor: Mixed Dancing and Jewish Modernity

Dances and balls appear throughout world literature as venues for young people to meet, flirt, and form relationships, as any reader of Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, or Romeo and Juliet can attest. The popularity of social dance transcends class, gender, ethnic, and national boundaries. In the context of Jewish culture, literary treatments of dancing can reveal new insights into emancipation and acculturation.

In this talk, Jewish literature scholar Sonia Gollance discusses sites of mixed-sex dancing such as weddings and taverns, which were seen as the very epitome of modernity––and the ultimate boundary transgression.

This event is cosponsored by the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.