Inside Higher Ed reports,

When a group of graduate students and young professors gathered for a workshop on “pushing the boundaries” of Jewish studies Monday, they broke up into small groups to consider some questions. One of them was: “How would you describe your work without using the words ‘Jew,’ ‘Jewish,’ or ‘Judaism?’”
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That’s not the kind of question that would have been asked at a Jewish studies meeting a decade ago. But even if this session was not entirely typical of those at this year’s annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies, held this week in Washington, it reflects the reality that this discipline is experiencing significant growth — in numbers and in focus.
[…] To be sure, there are plenty of sessions on traditional topics in Jewish history, religious life, and literature. Topics that have attracted scholars for some time, like Holocaust studies, show no sign of losing attention. But as one participant noted, Madonna “sort of hovered” in one discussion on Kabbalah and whether its Hollywood version is “garbage.” That Madonna would hover in any way at this meeting suggests a new Jewish studies.
“There’s been a real change of culture,” said Sara Horowitz, program chair for the meeting and director of Jewish studies at York University in Canada. She notes numerous sessions on issues of gender, for example, as well as sessions on topics that were largely ignored at previous meetings.

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