The Case of the Sexy Jewess
Dance, Gender and Jewish Joke-work in US Pop Culture
Hannah Schwadron
Reviews and Awards
Winner of the 2019 Dance Studies Association Bueno First Book Award
"In this fascinating, sweeping analysis of female Jewish comics from Fanny Brice to the Schlep Sisters, and popular film to punk pornography, Schwadron brilliantly considers the intersections of embodiment and movement with gender, race and sexuality. This is a groundbreaking study in which the writing is as layered, provocative, and self-reflexively ironic as the remarkable women she studies." -- Naomi Jackson, Associate Professor of Dance, Arizona State University
"To be a funny, sexy Jewess as theorized by Hannah Schwadron, is to be the at the leading edge of 21st Century scholarship, as dance, identity, sexual politics and intellectual rigor meet-up on the pages of this radical, timely, and very important book." -- Douglas Rosenberg, Founding Director, The Conney Project on Jewish Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Whether the subject is old-school comediennes like Fanny Brice, controversial comics like Sarah Silverman, Jewish porn and neo-burlesque stars, or the assimilated 'Jewish princesses' of Hollywood, Schwadron's deftly perceptive writing and idiosyncratic humor makes for an absolutely engaging read that adds much to the fields of Jewish studies, gender and queer studies, media studies, and performance and dance studies." -- Rebecca Rossen, author of Dancing Jewish: Jewish Identity in American Modern and Postmodern Dance