Instructor: Lewis Glinert, Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures
Overview: As Jewish and Hebrew studies and the study of music develop at Dartmouth, Jewish musical and spoken voice recordings must figure prominently in the curriculum. For example, the Hasidic melody was at the heart of Hasidism and its profound influence as a modern Jewish revivalist movement. In addition, Israeli folk music has played a central role in the creation of the new Israeli identity, and Yiddish and English Jewish humor are a core element in American Jewish identity.
The goal of the Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive is to provide students and scholars, both within the College and outside, with (1) Web-based access to recordings that are not commercially available; (2) related information that can aid in the study of Jewish music and culture, Jewish society, and the history of Jewish recording. The archive will span some 70 years of recording, with the oldest records dating from around 1910-1920 and the most recent material coming from LP’s issued in the 1970′s.
The Sound Archive will be a major element numerous courses and in the regular Hebrew language program: (a) HEBREW 10 ‘Intro to Hebrew Culture’; (b) AMEL 7 ‘Jerusalem: Vision and Reality’; (c) HEBREW 61/JEWISH STUDIES 40: ‘Intro to Israeli Culture: Literature, Music, Film’; (d) HEBREW 1, 2, 3, 21, 31.
In addition, the Sound Archive will make it possible to include Jewish music/spoken voice as a major element in the Jewish Studies and music curriculum, and possibly in history and anthropology courses: (a) JEWISH STUDIES 11 ‘History and Culture of the Jews’; (b) HISTORY 58/JEWISH STUDIES 37 ‘Representing the Holocaust’; (c) MUSIC 4 ‘Music of non-Western peoples’; (d) MUSIC 41 ‘Music, ceremony, ritual and sacred chant’; (e) JEWISH STUDIES 15 ‘Jews and Hollywood’.