One of the most radically innovative of Hasidic masters, Reb Nahman of Bratslav transformed images and concepts basic to Jewish thought into new and compelling forms. Tradition and Fantasy in the Tales of Reb Nahman of Bratslav uses comparative literary criticism, a range of Hasidic commentary, and original exegesis of the source texts to bring the complex artistry of Reb Nahman's thought to light, making it accessible to a wider audience.

This book - the first scholarly work on all thirteen tales in Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav's "Sippurey Ma'asiyot" - draws upon the concept of "intertextuality" to explain how Nahman defines his theology of redemption and encourages an appropriation of his religious world-view.

Memoirs of Jewish life in the east European shtetl often recall the hekdesh (town poorhouse) and its residents: beggars, madmen and madwomen, disabled people, and poor orphans. Stepchildren of the Shtetl tells the story of these marginalized figures from the dawn of modernity to the eve of the Holocaust. Combining archival research with analysis of literary, cultural, and religious texts, Natan M. Meir recovers the lived experience of Jewish society's outcasts and reveals the central role that they came to play in the drama of modernization. Those on the margins were often made to bear the burden of the nation as a whole, whether as scapegoats in moments of crisis or as symbols of degeneration, ripe for transformation by reformers, philanthropists, and nationalists. Shining a light into the darkest corners of Jewish society in eastern Europe—from the often squalid poorhouse of the shtetl to the slums and insane asylums of Warsaw and Odessa, from the conscription of poor orphans during the reign of Nicholas I to the cholera wedding, a magical ritual in which an epidemic was halted by marrying outcasts to each other in the town cemetery—Stepchildren of the Shtetl reconsiders the place of the lowliest members of an already stigmatized minority.

Theology, Fantasy, and the Imagination offers analyses of the theological, philosophical, and religious imagination found in fantasy literature, the theological imagination, and table-top games. Part I offers an invocation to the study through a theological reflection of the “old magic.” Part II analyzes classical Christian fantasy—ranging from dogmatic theological reflection on the fantastic imagination to analyses of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Part III analyzes the post-Christian turn in fantasy after about 1960 through today—featuring methodological, theological, and philosophical essays that reflect a movement beyond Christianity in the fantasy literature and writings of Rabbi Shagar, Ursula le Guin, Terry Pratchett, Robert Jordan and David Eddings, and Brandon Sanderson and Orson Scott Card. Part IV closes with two analyses of the religious and philosophical dimensions of table-top games, including Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: the Gathering. Theology, Fantasy, and the Imagination offers astute analyses of how theological fantasy actually is by articulating the religious, philosophical, and theological dimensions of the fantastic imagination.

The Companion to Jewish Culture - From the Eighteenth Century to the Present was first published in 1989. It is a single-volume encyclopedia containing biographical and topic entries ranging from 200 to 1000 word each.

Jewish Contiguities and the Soundtrack of Israeli History unfolds the cultural itineraries of modern Jewish and Israeli art music. Extending from modern Jewish art music in Europe through its dislocation to British Palestine and Israel, the book captures the tensions between national rhetoric and nationalized theological tropes through the way they have been recorded in art music. Author Assaf Shelleg begins with the prehistory of Israeli art music in central and Western Europe. He introduces the reader to the various aesthetic dilemmas in the history of modern Jewish art music, ranging from auto-exoticism to Jewish self-hatred. Moving on to consider the Hebrew culture, he discusses the institutionalization of art music in British Palestine and the dilution of romanticist nationalism during the interregnum of Israeli statehood. Delving into the proliferation of styles in the 1950s and '60s, Shelleg examines the collapse of traditional Hebrew templates and the concomitant surge of linear compositional devices inspired by Arab Jewish music. By the 1970s, he reveals, Israeli composers saw musical Judaism as a cultural discourse that transcended the nation; they deterritorialized the national discourse at the same time that religious Zionist circles had been translating theology into politics. Shelleg unearths the various cultural constraints and dialectics that played a pivotal role in the dislocation of modern Jewish art music to Israel, and looks at the Jewish undercurrents of Hebrew culture and how Jewish secularized concepts outgrew their national functions. Jewish Contiguities and the Soundtrack of Israeli History will be essential reading for scholars of Jewish and Israeli music, culture, and history

Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav was one of the most celebrated masters of late Jewish mysticism and Hasidism, and his writings have become classics. This volume brings together translations of three seminal studies on Rabbi Nahman in German, Hebrew, and Yiddish with six new studies from scholars in various fields of Jewish studies. The presentation of new scholarly work widens the conversation about Hasidism in general and Rabbi Nahman in particular by viewing his ideology from the perspective of contemporary hermeneutic, philosophical, and literary perspectives incorporating the insights of postmodernism, gender theory, and literary criticism. New ground is covered in essays on Rabbi Nahman's attitude toward death, his approach to gender, his interpretation of circumcision, the impact of his tales on Yiddish literature, and his hermeneutic theory. The combination of classic and new studies in God's Voice from the Void offers a window into the trajectory of scholarship on Hasidism, including ways in which contemporary scholars of Hasidism and Hasidic literature both continue and develop the work of their predecessors.

Introduction by Derek Brewer.The aim of this book is to discuss the characteristics of the traditional fairy tale in Europe and North America, and various theories of its development and interpretation. The book deals with the main collections - the Grimm brothers, Hans Andersen, Perrault and Afanes'ev - and with the development of tales in various regions of Europe, including Ireland, Wales, Scandinavia, Germany and Russia, as well as India, where it was once claimed that they originated.The subject of the fairy tale is a controversial one: problems discussed here include the relationship between tales recorded from story-tellers and literary works, the importance of printed works for the spread of the tales, the growth of recent examples with a feminine approach, the spread of popular tales like Cinderella, special types like the cumulative tales, possible effects of TV, and the nature of traditional plots and characters. Above all, we have been concerned with the distribution and long survival of these tales, and the nature of their appeal. SHORTLISTED FOR THE KATHARINE BRIGGS FOLKLORE AWARD 2004. Contributors: GRAHAM ANDERSON, DAVID BLAMIRES, RUTH BOTTIGHEIMER, DEREK BREWER, MARY BROCKINGTON, ANNA CHAUDHRI, HILDA ELLIS DAVIDSON, ROBIN GWYNDAF, BENGT HOLBEK, DAVID HUNT, REIMUND KVIDELAND, PATRICIA LYSAGHT, NEIL PHILIP, JAMES RIORDAN, PAT SCHAEFER, TOM SHIPPEY, JOYCE THOMAS.

The Hasidic leader R. Nachman of Braslav (1772–1810) has held a place in the Jewish popular imagination for more than two centuries. Some see him as the (self-proclaimed) Messiah, others as the forerunner of modern Jewish literature. Existing studies struggle between these dueling readings, largely ignoring questions of aesthetics and politics in his work. A Permanent Beginning lays out a new paradigm for understanding R. Nachman's thought and writing, and, with them, the beginnings of Jewish literary modernity. Yitzhak Lewis examines the connections between imperial modernization processes in Eastern Europe at the turn of the eighteenth century and the emergence of "modern literature" in the storytelling of R. Nachman. Reading his tales and teachings alongside the social, legal, and intellectual history of the time, the book's guiding question is literary: How does R. Nachman represent this changing environment in his writing? Lewis paints a nuanced and fascinating portrait of a literary thinker and creative genius at the very moment his world was evolving unrecognizably. He argues compellingly that R. Nachman's narrative response to his changing world was a major point of departure for Jewish literary modernity.

The "Shadow Tree Series" comprises a unique collection of Western Esoteric studies and practices which Jacobus Swart, has actuated and taught over a period of forty years. Having commenced his Kabbalah studies in Safed in the early 1970's, he later broadened his "kabbalistic horizons" under the careful guidance of the famed English Kabbalist William G. Gray. "The Book of Sacred Names" is a practical guide into the meditational and magical applications of ancient Hebrew Divine Names. Perpetuating the tenets of traditional Kabbalists who recognised the fundamental bond between "Kabbalah" and "Magic," Jacobus Swart offers step by step instructions on the deliberate and conscious control of personal life circumstances, by means of the most cardinal components of Kabbalistic doctrines and techniques-Divine Names! The material addressed in this tome derives from the extensive primary literature of "Practical Kabbalah," much of which is appearing in print for the first time in English translation.