Rebecca Rossen, Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre and Dance, The University of Texas at Austin

Recipient, Special Citation from the de la Torre Bueno Prize, Society of Dance History Scholars

2015 Oscar G. Brockett Book Prize for Dance Research, Congress on Research in Dance

Recipient, Special Citation from the de la Torre Bueno Prize, Society of Dance History Scholars 2015 Oscar G. Brockett Book Prize for Dance Research, Congress on Research in Dance "She describes and annotates, with relish and care, selected Jewish-themed dances by Jewish choreographers (some early character pieces, some classic modern dances, some less known postmodern works), decoding markers of Jewishness and analyzing how they have evoked, transmitted, and modified ethnic and gender identity from the 1920s to the present. This is clearly a labor of love and sweat, dynamic balancing, and discovery." --Diana Scott, Jewish Currents

"Rossen's deft interweaving of beautifully-written movement descriptions with rigorous scholarship produces a multifaceted analysis of the role of Jewish identity within the development of modern and postmodern dance. Dancing Jewish is an important original contribution to dance studies." --Ann Cooper Albright, author of Engaging Bodies: the Politics and Poetics of Corporeality

"Rebecca Rossen's highly readable Dancing Jewish is a major contribution to both Jewish studies and dance/performance studies. Drawing on a rich mix of archival work, interviews with performers, and the author's personal experience as a dancer and choreographer, the book is a shining example of how performance-centered research can take us places that scholarship could not otherwise reach." --Henry Bial, University of Kansas, author of Acting Jewish: Negotiating Ethnicity on the American Stage and Screen

"[T]he totality of Rossen's book project is a beautifully crafted testament to the multilayered, interdisciplinary, consciously constructed, communally achieved nature of the topic she tackles."--Dance Review Journal

"This excellent book is simultaneously a performance history, an ethnic history, and a timely reminder to all who might forget that Jewishness still matters in the United States, not only to those who identify as Jewish, but to the vast majority of the population which doesn't. . . . Rossen's book reminds us, if we needed reminding, that Jewishness matters in America, and in American history too, especially in those histories written with our bodies, like dance."--Jane Desmond, Studies in Theatre and Performance

"Rossen's volume is a significant addition to the literature as it offers the fruits of valuable new research that enhances understandings of the interrelationships between American Jewish and dance history. This important book can be utilized for courses in a range of fields, particularly in the context of Jewish studies, including American Jewish history, Jewish dance history, American Jewish visual arts and cultural history, and Jewish gender history, among others. By providing a complex and multidisciplinary analysis, Rossen's monograph serves as an important contribution to many fields and enhances the growing intersection of Jewish and dance studies." --Images