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That Ginger, Anna

That Ginger, Anna

Tag Archives: Academia

European and U.S. Populisms: Gender, Economy, and Society.

09 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Commentary

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Academia, american, anthropology, college, commentary, conference, constituents, europe, european, FN, France, French, french national front, french studies, history, le pen, left wing, leftist, New York City, new york university, NYC, NYU, peron, political, political science, political sociology, politics, populism, right wing, sociology, trump, United States, voters, voting

Let’s talk about European and U.S. populisms, shall we? Maybe you read my previous post about how one could equate Fascism and Communism as they relate to populism. Well, on Friday I went to a conference at NYU titled, “The French National Front and Beyond: A Global Populist Movement?” It was SO interesting. I was able to confirm several things I understand about populism, come up with some new questions, and widen my understanding of Right-wing political movements in both the United States and Europe. Unfortunately, I didn’t stay for the keynote speech because I arrived when the conference started and couldn’t stay until the evening, but the two panels I listened to,“Sexual Politics” and “Populism from Below: Ethnographers at Work”, were both amazing.

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DISCLAIMER: I have complex opinions (some lengthy and mature in their development, others new and ever changing) regarding topics each panelist spoke about. I am not prepared to write each of them out in this post. When I write about my disagreement with a panelist it does not mean that I agree with the alternative viewpoint, it only means that I don’t agree with their specific interpretation in the context of their presentation. If I write something that offends or confuses you, ask me to clarify what I mean and I will gladly do so!

The first panel was about Sexual Politics and three presenters spoke about their work: Kathleen M. Blee, Anika Keinz, and Cornelia Moser. Kathleen spoke about Right-wing movements in the United States as they relate to gender. Kathleen touched on something that I agreed with: the Right isn’t necessarily ignorant, but they use a different strategy of ideological bundling than the Left. Ethno-nationalism, masculinity, hierarchy, and anti-globalism are each ways the Right in the United States is able to appeal to different ideological bundles people hold. This directly confirmed my idea that one’s hierarchy of social identities determines if they will vote Left or Right. I did disagree with one assertion she seemed to make which was that politicians who develop or articulate their stances issue by issue rather than as a complete ideology are opportunistic. I am of the opinion that anyone (politician or not) can hold opposing views on different things without being a hypocrite or an opportunist so I would have liked to have heard more about her ideas on that.

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Cornelia spoke mainly about gender and the Right in France. I liked all of the presenters, but two points in Cornelia’s presentation struck me. She identified the Right as “familialist”. That is, promoting ideologies that emphasize families in tandem with oppressive sexual and gender norms. Had this been used solely as an adjective to describe the way the Right wishes to organize society, I may have agreed, but it wasn’t. I understand that it refers to the way in which a group hopes society organizes itself-that is in a familial structure-but the definition of a family has expanded considerably over the years. With the progressive changes in domestic partnership and adoption law (especially in France), the traditional husband and wife with two children is no longer the only form families take. What I mean to say is that familial organization of society is not as narrow as it once was and doesn’t not have to denote “oppressive sexual and gender norms”. Even historically, a familial organization of society has not always meant organizing around a nuclear family. I also do not know what one who is against familialist parties or societal organization would propose as an alternative. Cornelia mentioned that the Right is also anti-individualistic in some ways, so I am again curious what the alternative is, if anti-individualism and familial organization of society are both negative. Cornelia also spoke about something that was my biggest objection of the 6 presenters: “dediabolization” or the idea that “making stances discussable” makes them less negative. She specifically mentioned this regarding neo-nazi stances. I wish I could have asked her to explain what she meant more clearly but I vehemently disagree that talking about an idea or stance makes it less evil or negative.

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Anika spoke about the politicization of gender/sexuality in Germany. Her presentation was very interesting and she spoke about a topic that was the focus of many of my classes at NYU: othering. She specifically talked about German politicians bringing lesbian and gay citizens (all presenters were clear that politicians do not recognize TQIA* in Europe) into their constituencies in order to make Muslims the new, more other, other. She and Anika both explained homo-nationalism and gay-imperialism as ways in which the West is reinforcing the Orient-Occident colonial (and pre-colonial) divide in a neo-racist way. I’ve often thought about this topic, so I was glad that these two presenters discussed it and provided examples. That being said, I would love to hear more about gay-imperialism because it seems to be a poor way of describing the permeations of Western sexual culture outside of the West. I don’t agree with cultural imperialism (hence my firm belief in regionalism), but where is the line to be drawn? Speaking of gay-imperialism between the Occident and Orient seems to imply that there is a singular cultural idea about sexuality in the Occident, which is being forced onto the Orient . When, in fact, as each of these presenters showed, cultural ideas about sexuality and gender in the West are very different. It was also mentioned that many decolonial governments preserved sexist and homophobic legal systems, which in itself seems to contradict the idea of a contemporary gay-imperialism in many ways. Who constitutes a cultural group? Should all cultures be preserved and protected from ideological imperialism? Which cultures are to be made to embrace contemporary, progressive ideas of gender and sexuality? When is ideological imperialism “liberation” and when is it imperialism? Why? Anika also presented the Right on a spectrum, which I also thought was quite accurate and fitting (right conservative-right populist-right extremist). This panel was the most eye-opening and definitely sparked my curiosity and need for more research. If you have thoughts on these topics or want to recommend literature, feel free to drop a comment below and we will discuss!

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The second panel and my personal favorite featured Don Kalb, Christele Marchand-Lagier, and Rachel Meade. Don spoke about the Right as it relates to workers in Poland and race in Hungary. Rachel spoke about populisms on the Left and Right in Michigan, and Christele explained the intricacies of the social positions and views held by voters for the French National Front-the leading Right-wing party in France. Rachel’s presentation was an explanation of her field work in Traverse City, Michigan. She spent 4 months with an Occupy group, a group of Bernie Sanders supporters, and a 912 group. She explained that both the Left and Right populist groups situated themselves against the party establishment, felt their values were being undervalued, and distrusted the media. Her research also echoed something similar to Christele’s: there was a clear disconnect between people’s day-to-day life, their online persona, and their voting identity, especially among those on the Right. She explained the similarities and differences between populism on the Left and Right in each of these cases and also relayed her personal experiences as a researcher. She also focuses on Argentina and I was quite sad that she didn’t talk more about her work there because I have done some research about clientelism in Latin America as well as Italian Fascism in Argentina so I would have loved to have known more about populism there (she did explain that Argentina presents a perfect example of historical populism on the Left with Peronistas, while contemporary Leftists in Argentina reject the populist label).

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Don spoke in-depth about class and labor-share as it relates to voter turnout and the way people vote. He focused on the working poor and how the Right was able to capture their vote. His was the most historical of the 6 and he also explained the evolution of Left-wing Catholic, Trotskyist voters in post 1989-Poland. I was intrigued by this aspect of Polish labor history and will definitely be looking into it more. He also introduced an amazing idea that I felt was a great way of distinguishing populisms on the Left and Right. He characterizes populism on the Left as binary: “the people” against the elite with equality as their main goal and populism on the Right as tripartite: “the people” against the elite and against the undeserving classes in the promotion of a new elite made of the “deserving classes”. While I don’t necessarily agree completely, I do think this is a productive and helpful way to distinguish populisms. He also threw out an alarming statistic about the working poor and Roma in Hungary: many families in each group survive on 200 Euros ($212) a month, which I think is absolutely insane. He mentioned several other things including geography, nationalized welfare and public schooling (would love to see how it relates to the formation of French nationalism and public education—see The New Regime: Transformations of the French Civic Order, 1789-1820s by Isser Woloch) as they relate to the Magyar–Roma relationship in Hungary.

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Christele interviewed people in two southern French departments over many years and asked why they voted why they voted. She has also done extensive exit polling. She explained that the French National Front attracts a diversity of voters that often do not know or may not even agree with the party platform, but that feel they are choosing the best candidate out of many bad candidates…She explained that one’s interpersonal, social, and economic relationships to society and how they change over time (Dan also made a point to explain how one’s class identity changes over time and therefore often causes a change in voting) are the biggest factors in determining how a person votes. She also made a point to dispel the notion that any party speaks for the “silent” citizens or those that “don’t have a voice” because as she said, silent citizens or citizens who aren’t represented do not vote. I thought that was a great point. Another point that I agreed with and was glad to see her research support is that people’s votes do not necessarily translate to agreement. I thought this also played into one thing that Kathleen brought up which was the erasure of gender as a factor for the 53% of Caucasian women who voted for the Right in our most recent election. Christele also spoke about geographic differences in voting, as did Don, which I am also very much interested in.

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I liked that each panel had a presenter who showed how populism in the United States both aligns with and differs from European populism. I would have liked for any of them to relate their work to regionalism and Euroscepticism (one of the audience members asked about this but they ran out of time). It delighted me that most presenters agreed that populism was not a manifestation of only the Right or only the Left and that it can emerge from any political ideology. I was also happy to see presenters from different fields presenting their research (historians were under-represented though) and it was especially good that there were people who had done fieldwork on their topic. Historians don’t have the luxury of being able to prove things that aren’t available in primary or secondary documents (except oral historians), so it was great to see research that was based on living people. Christele focused on something I am most interested in: what makes people vote the way they do. She is a political sociologist; she said that it is an underrepresented field of Political Science and that there is only 1 other Ph.D. in France working on anything remotely similar to what she focuses on. I wonder if there are any political sociologists in Italy studying Lega Nord voters or secessionists in the south? What about the political sociology of members of organized crime syndicates? The political sociology of voters in the Southern U.S. or Hawaii? I could do it! Anyway, this was an amazing conference and I hope that I am able to attend other similar events in the future. I think next up will be another lecture at Columbia about Italian Renaissance drawing so come back soon!

 

Settis Lecture

If you’re near Columbia on the 20th, you should check it out!

 

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Contemporary European Identity, Music, and La Serenissima

02 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Commentary, history, School and Work

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Academia, carnegie hall, columbia, columbia university, europe, european identity, european union, euroscepticism, history, identity politics, italian, italian history, italian studies, italiano, jordi savall, la serenissima, manhattan, music history, New York City, NYC, political history, political identity, politics, populism, storia, venezia, venice

Tonight, I went to a roundtable discussion entitled “La Serenissima: The Millenarian Venice” at The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University. The speaker was Jordi Savall, a Catalan musician who has been recording, performing, writing, speaking and otherwise informing the world about ancient, medieval, renaissance, and baroque music (from both the orient and occident) for over 50 years. img_3167
I originally thought to attend the lecture because I have studied Venetian political history but know very little about music from Venice. I (very nervously and poorly) presented a paper at a conference in West, Texas in 2012 and was exposed to some Medieval Spanish music there, but I otherwise have no experience with music history (you can peep that paper on my LinkedIn profile). To my pleasant surprise, Savall went beyond the discussion of music history and touched on the two things I am most passionate about: Jewish history in Venice and European cultural identity.
Savall is in New York to perform as part of a Carnegie Hall series about Venice. He has constructed a 1 hour and 50 minute (whittled down from 4+ hours) performance which covers Venetian music history. The auditory history begins in 828 when Venice was only a cub in the Adriatic and ends in 1797 when Napoleon slaughtered the sick lion.

Savall specifically mentioned the importance of Sephardic Jews to the commercial history of Venice and the first of two pieces he played was a Sephardic melody: Por Que Llorax Blanca Nina. He explained that the piece had been played from the Expulsion in the 15th century to World War II. He brought up a great point about radio which plays into Benedict Anderson‘s ideas about shared language and print culture. Up until the 1920s and 1930s music was very much a community affair. Not only was it passed down from generation to generation orally, it also had to be played by members of the community. It could never be replicated exactly and it was not a shared experience outside of the memory of those who witnessed the live performance (still true to an extent hence the unique experience of concerts). With the invention and permeation of radio and recording, people were then able to share a common experience and simultaneously ingest audio content while also interpreting it differently. People were able to do this with vernacular language and print much earlier, but it wasn’t until the 1920s or 30s that people were able to have this shared auditory experience (then shared and simultaneous visual experiences with cinema+TV). Similar to the evolution of print culture and its relation to modes of power, Savall also touched on the idea of folk music and its relationship to the two main sources of power in European history: the king’s court and the Church. I’m interested to look into this more and it definitely reinvigorated my curiosity about ways in which European identity were and are created. While his discussion of Sephardic Jewish music in the Venetian diaspora was especially fascinating, he also discussed something much more contemporary that has always intrigued me: cultural preservation and European identity.

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I have always thought that regionalism, separatism, and local governance are the best ways to preserve cultures, heritages, and languages. Savall, as a proud Catalan, voiced a different belief. He thinks that unique cultures and heritages should be preserved, but he does not see that as a separating factor between Europeans. He specifically stated that he is not only Catalan but also a citizen of Europe. He says he speaks Spanish, but talks to his friends and reads in Catalan, yet feels at home in London, Venice, and all of the other cities in Europe. This brings up something at the heart of my second Masters essay: the hierarchy of one’s cultural and political identities. He didn’t talk about referendums or separatism at all, but he made it clear that he does support European unity while maintaining a strong Catalan identity-with music being the meeting place of those identities. This expands and adds nuance to a model I used for my essay. Here is an excerpt:
“Sébastien Dubé and Raùl Magni-Berton provide a theory which directly correlates  one’s income and national GDP to Euroscepticism. Their model outlines four specific differences in European political identity. The first model is poor people living in poor EU member states, the second is poor people living in rich EU member states, the third is rich people living in rich EU member states, and the last is rich people living in poor EU member states. In general, each of these socio-economic situations produces a different hierarchy of transnational, national, and regional identities. Poor individuals living in poor states often elevate their religious identity above that of the nation, assuming the pre-nationalist identity that Anderson outlined above. Poor individuals living in rich countries are more likely to identity with their particular culture or nation. Rich people living in poor countries often elevate their transnational identity above their national or cultural identity, valuing diversity above most other qualities. While rich people living in rich countries are often concerned with improving their aesthetic environment, maintaining their material well-being, as well as pride in their nation and personal economic status. Dubé and Magni-Berton conclude that wealth, and in turn European identity, denotes support of deeper EU integration while those poorer citizens that possess a strong national and cultural identity are often against EU expansion.”

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I don’t necessarily think Savall’s opinions contradict the above model (I don’t know how his ideas of European integration have changed over time), but he did introduce some intricacies which I haven’t considered. In my work, I presented art and entertainment (as it was presented to me) as tools used to build national and transnational identity. There is a wonderful book called Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice which touches on the importance of entertainment and placation of the public as a tool to create shared experiences among citizens of all classes, build a singular identity, and mold people in to allowing the state to govern them. Modes of entertainment owned and operated by elite forces (the king, the Church, wealthy European politicians, etc.) have been used as tools to sculpt the political identity of the masses since Ancient times, but I have never thought about how folk music (and music created and performed on the local or regional level) helps to shape and bolster one’s political identity. I am very intrigued to know how other folk musicians from different regions and socio-economic backgrounds think of their music in relation to European integration. I will do further research, but I am also very happy to see ideas of cultural preservation come to the forefront, without some of the xenophobic ideas that often accompany that conversation. We can and should work together to help preserve the unique music, language, art, culture, and history that we each represent in the modern world. As Stavall said, cultural conservation does not have to denote separation!

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SN: The theme for the 2016-2017 year at The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America is “Conservation and preservation of heritage and the contemporary destruction of art and architecture”. The brochure presents one particular scholar and her work, which seem to tie in directly to my ideas about cultural identity and transnationalism: “Public indifference to the loss of cultural heritage and identity” by Roberta De Monticelli. I have yet to read her work (as I just learned of it this evening), but I would argue that the public (generational intricacies are super important here) is actually not indifferent to the loss of cultural heritage and identity at all. In fact, I think a majority of people who support Eurosceptic and populist political movements (beyond economics) are doing so in a desperate attempt to reclaim both national and regional cultural heritage and identity. Now, finding a singular definition of said cultural heritage and identity to “reclaim” and from whom to “reclaim” it is where the difficultly arises (which often manifests as fear, exclusion, xenophobia, racism etc.). Rather than addressing the root cause of these fears, many just scream “Fascist” or “Nazi” and go on about stripping away or militantly reshaping those very identities people are so scared of losing. I think the preservation of cultural heritage may be a great way to change some of the sentiments which lead to the support of populist and Eurosceptic political movements (againnn, just to be clear that I don’t have my head in the sand: I do think economics trumps cultural heritage and without economic changes people are going to continue to reject transnationalism). When national and transnational governments fund the protection and preservation of these local identities, they are showing citizens that in the face of globalization and economic/social/religious/linguistic integration, their personal identity matters to the success and heritage of the European Union. And we all know people just want to matter!
Anyway, tonight was FREAKING AMAZING and I can’t wait for the next discussion on the 13th: “East of Venice: La Serenissima as seen from its Eastern frontiers“! One of the criticisms of my second Masters essay was that I did not adequately situate Italy between the orient and the occident. I wasn’t thinking about this when I wrote the paper as I’ve never read any scholarship touching on Venetian history from the perspective of the East (beyond my short foray into Jewish merchants as middlemen between the Ottomans and Venetian Republic), so I am stoked to finally learn some stuff about that! Come back and join me then.

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Part 2: Politics of Difference and Jewish Diversity

16 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in School and Work

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Academia, ashkenazim, ebraico, economic history, eu, europe, european history, finance, hebrew, history, italian history, italiano, jewish history, judaica, judaism, mizrahim, political history, religious history, scholarship, sephardim, storia, venetian history, venezia, venice, writing

So, let’s get down to business. Now that you know how and why I became interested in the history of Jews in Venice, I’m going to connect some dots and summarize my work.

This post will explain a few different connections between economic, political, and religious history in Venice, Italy before 1797.

You can read my original paper from 2012 here. Or if you want to read even more, you can peep my thesis here (disregard page numbers because I deleted the front matter).

Running Disclaimer: I am not Jewish nor am I an expert of Judaica. I am not Italian nor am I an expert of Italian history…or an expert of anything really. All of my research is based on primary and secondary sources (cited in the papers) and interviews with members of the Jewish community where I currently live. My knowledge is restricted by these factors. While I can verify things people tell me, their experiences, ideas and theories are their own and I have no authority to correct them if they may contradict something I’ve read over the past 5 years. If you read something you think is wrong, please comment below and I will either edit/expand my post or clarify my original point.

Who-What-When-Where-Why…not in that order

-Where: What area are we talking about here? In the contemporary imagination, Venice is a relatively small group of islands off the coast of northeastern Italy where people from all over the world go to marvel at art and architecture. But the Venetian Republic occupied/governed a much larger area back in the day…according to good ol’ Wikipedia and a quick look at a few maps, one can see that Venice governed land in areas that now make up part of Italy, Croatia, Greece, Albania, Cyprus, Montenegro, Slovenia, Turkey, Russia, and Ukraine!

venice-and-its-holdings

NOT MY MAP: GO HERE

Venice also occupied/governed large swaths of territory on the terra firma (solid land…ya know, not islands)

venetian-lands

NOT MINE EITHER: GO HERE

The contemporary region of Veneto looks like this (SN: In a future post I plan to talk about a current political movement which hopes to reestablish the Venetian Republic…what what?)

Provinces_of_Veneto_map.png

Again, not a cartographer, go look here!

-Who: Who are “the Jews of Venice”? Was it just a few rich merchant families? In modern times the Jewish community in America and Israel (maybe elsewhere, but I don’t know) is divided into two groups: the Ashkenazim אַשְׁכְּנַזִּים and the Sephardim סְפָרַדִּים. To be clear, these two larger groups contain countless smaller groups that follow the Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions. In Venice, these two groups were known as Tedeschi and Ponentine, respectively. There was also a third group of Jews in Venice: the Levantines. While Tedeschi is a direct translation of Ashkenazim or Germanic, Ponentine is a particularly Italian classification of Jews from the “west”, specifically Spain and Portugal, who followed the Sephardic tradition. In modern times there are two other large groups: Ethiopian Jews and Mizrahim or Eastern Jews (from what I’ve learned the latter classification is antiquated and can be offensive in certain contexts but also a point of pride in other contexts). Levantine Jews in the Venetian context were Ottoman subjects and would fall within the modern Mizrahim or Eastern group, who follow the Sephardic tradition. So Levantine and Ponentine Jews followed the Sephardic tradition and Tedeschi Jews followed the Ashkenazi tradition. Ashkenazim and Sephardim don’t only denote geographic origin but also describe the specific traditions one follows. The two groups also have unique languages, food, prayers, music, etc. Most Jews in Germany, Poland, and the rest of Eastern Europe follow(ed) Ashkenazi traditions (with particular local adaptations), while Jews from Spain, Portugal, the Mediterranean region, the “Middle East”, and Western Asia follow(ed) Sephardic traditions. Russia and its “sphere of influence” is its own animal. Russian Jews from Western Russia follow(ed) mainly Ashkenazi traditions while formerly Persian areas, which came under Russian control in modern times, follow Sephardic traditions. Think Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran (Persian Sephardim have their own unique traditions too), Azerbaijan, etc. To make things even more confusing, there are two other unique traditions: Italian and Romaniote Jews. Italian Jewish tradition, known as Italkim,  is different from Ashkenazim and Sephardim.  While there may have been a small Italkim and Romaniote Jewish community in Venice (proper and its overseas holdings) which fell under the umbrella of Ponentine or Levantine, there was not a specific classification by the Venetian government for Italkim or Romaniote Jews. I talk more about Ashkenazim and Sephardim in another post, but just wanted to illuminate the fact that “the Jews” is a completely misleading way to identify Jewish people both in the past and now!

So, for the purposes of this post, the Universita degli Hebrei or Jewish community in Venice contained three groups: Tedeschi (including Italkim), Ponentine, and Levantine (including Ponentine-yes, I know it makes no sense) Jews. Jews existed in three communities as well: there were groups of Jews living in Venice proper (the islands where the government was located), on the terra firma in modern day Mestre and the surrounding area, and in Venice’s overseas holdings like Crete and Corfu.

-When: Let’s start with the end of the Republic since that is a definite. Venice was taken by Napoleon Bonaparte on 12 May 1797 and gifted to Austria 5 months later, with the treaty of Campo Formio. Along with the Jewish ghettos, the Venetian Republic ceased to exist. Now, for the beginning. People began populating the islands of current-day Venice in the 400s! Yes, the fifth freakin’ century! The city itself was established on 25 March 421. Venice fell under the control of the Byzantine Empire until 751. Although the first Doge was elected in 726. These elections (as tenuous as they may have been) ceased and the Great Council closed in 1297, which officially created the exclusive oligarchy which would rule Venice until the end. Families who were part of the Venetian political scene from the 700s would still have members in the government in 1797! I obviously cannot write about or even summarize the history of Jews in Venice between 421 and 1797, but I will explain how the community helped the Republic maintain its power up to its last days.

Like many historical events, the establishment of the Jewish community in Venice is a hard one to nail down. What makes a “Jewish community”? Would one Jewish merchant be enough? 5? 10? The establishment of a synagogue? The first document (that I know of) placing a Jewish community under the control of the Venetian government is a petition from the Jewish community of Crete to the Doge in 1314. While this may be the first document directly addressing Jews, I am quite sure there was a Jewish presence in Venice several decades if not centuries before. There is a disputed census from 1152 which records the presence of a Jewish community and the Venetian government outlawed money lending in the islands in 1254 which forced Jews and Christians to lend on the mainland (don’t worry, this changed and Jews were exclusively contracted to lend money in Venice beginning in the 1300s). The Venetian government invited money lenders, specifically Tedeschi Jews, to come to Venice between 1366 and 1373.  With the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal in 1492/95, a new wave of Jewish migrants came to the islands as well. The Venetian government didn’t officially invite/allow Ponentine Jews to settle until the end of the 16th century, but Ponentine Jews entered Venice from the east as Levantines (remember, they were both Sephardic) during this 100-year gap and afterward. Cecil Roth, a scholar of Venetian history places the Jewish community in Venice sometime in the 12th century and a new exhibit at the Met explains that at least 3 ships a year were sailing between Venice and Jerusalem by the 13th century (I’m in the middle of researching these ships and will check back in when I get some info). Contracts between the Venetian government and Jewish communities living in the islands and on the terra firma abound from the middle of the 1300s, so that’s what I’m going with. There are still 500 Jews living in Venice today, so the story isn’t over!

-What: So what actually went down between Jews in Venice, non-Jewish citizens, and the government? Long story short the Jewish communities in Venice had a HUGE role in the Venetian economy and lent money to poor citizens, rich citizens, and the Venetian GOVERNMENT (yes, the Jewish community in Venice lent money to the state for interest-think government bonds!) up until the final days of the Republic. First, let’s address moneylending. This money lending was more closely related to pawn brokering (the Jewish community also cornered the market on the sale of secondhand goods-no doubt pledges that lenders weren’t able to buy back) although Jewish moneylenders did lend on written agreements at a higher percentage of interest. Tedeschi and Italkim Jews lent money in Mestre and Venice. See, most of the rest of Italy used a poor-relief system operated by the Catholic Church called the Monte di Pieta, but Venice received “permission” (I use quotes because Venice had a strained relationships with the Church on many occasions) via a papal legate from 1463 to contract money lending to the Jews and later the Monte di Pieta was outlawed completely! Initially, the Jewish money lenders were only lending to wealthy Venetians as to ensure they would receive the highest interest rate, but it was put into law that the Jews had to accept pledges from poor clients and lend small sums. This allowed the Venetian government to control poor-relief or “welfare” without giving up any power to the Church but also, the state itself wasn’t responsible. Genius move! SN: These contracts were extensive AF and the last one from 1786 had 96 clauses–including who Jews could have sex with, where they could work, when they could come and go from the ghettos, what they could wear, tax rates, etc.

So, were the Jewish moneylenders in Venice only responsible for poor-relief? NO way! They also sold secondhand goods. There were strict rules about this though because, ya see, Venice was a “union” city and guilds ruled the roost. First and foremost in order to have a legitimated government “the man” has to placate its citizens in order that they will allow themselves to be governed. There are many ways of doing this (like bread and circuses, yo) and one way the Venetian government did it was through extensive contracts and negotiations with guilds! There were guilds for salt and leather and sewing and building and shipping and everything else you can think of. Unique contracts with each guild outlined what they could do and provided protections for their industries. Anyway, people in Venice were very poor, even nobles, except a few (like, really, a few)

NOT MINE....NOT MINE...

Nobili=Noble families Popolani=Non-noble families (not in Great Council) Sopra la 50,000=net worth more than 50,000 ducats

As a result of these guild rules, Jews in Venice weren’t allowed to trade overseas as Venetian merchants until 1589. Venetian shipping suffered immensely with the discovery of America and a shipping route around the horn of Africa so the government pulled out all the stops and opened up the profession to Jews. A large number of Jews visited Venice regularly as Ottoman subjects/merchants and were governed in this capacity before 1589. Jewish merchants were also allowed to trade with other Italian cities so they did have a role in the Venetian merchant economy, as long as it didn’t conflict with the native-patriciate nobility and their merchant activities.

Don’t get it twisted, for quite some time, the state used “forced loans” from the Jews and wealthy nobles to stay afloat. See, a bunch of rich Venetian families decided shipping and receiving was a trashy way to make money and they thought feudalism was cool…a few hundred years after feudalism was found to be a no-go on the continent. So a huge chunk of the nobility-when they weren’t creating unprofitable farms on the terra firma-worked for the government in order to get a pension from the state.

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Here’s one of the Venetian noble’s estates on the terra firma!

When the Great Council closed in 1297 lineage was the only thing that validated one’s position in government. This meant many families, despite their net worth, were allowed to hold political office. The lower class nobles, aka barnabotti, were dependent on the Jewish lenders, the government, and wealthier nobles. As early as 1490 a MAJORITY of the noble class in Venice was dependent on the state for subsistence!

This is a good book if you want to know more:

Buy it!

 

Also, guess what? These contracts encouraged conversos to go back Judaism in order to enjoy the benefits of the contracts. The contract for merchants allowed Jewish traders to pay the same customs rates as native Venetian merchants, whereas conversos wouldn’t be allowed to be merchants at all!

Parts of these contracts also included the ghettoization of the Jews. Jewish Venetians had to live within the ghettos established by the state. There were warehouses for their goods, stores, schools, synagogues, and other institutions for the exclusive use of Jews. There were three ghettos in Venice, the first of which was mandated in 1516 for the Tedeschi Jews and visiting Levantines…prior to this, Jewish moneylenders and merchants were allowed to live wherever they could find a space to rent. From 1516 to 1797 the Jews were required to reside only in the ghettos. A specific ghetto was created in 1541 for the Levantines and in 1633 for Ponentines. One of the most interesting parts of all of this is the intricate system of self-government the Jewish community in Venice organized. I am not an expert and I can’t summarize here, but in short, there were groups or Scuole for each tradition and they composed a sort of Jewish congress (with the permission and encouragement of the Venetian state) which exacted taxes from the community and negotiated with the state on its behalf.

As I mentioned before I am fascinated by separatism and self-determination and one interesting adaptation of this occurred in the Jewish communities of Venice. The Tedeschi, Ponentine, and Levantine Jews created an intricate system of self-government in Venice. It was a state within a state where individuals represented themselves and members of their particular group. This obviously completely flips the idea that the Venetian state was a harsh oligarchy where people had no authority over their lives. Of course, the state held power over the Jewish community and I am not saying they had some sort of absolute agency over their position in Venetian society, but organs of self-government served a valuable purpose and were not just for show! Check out this book: A Separate Republic: The Mechanics and Dynamics of Venetian Jewish Self-Government, 1607-1674

‘Twas someone’s dissertation…

The last encounter between the Universita degli Hebrei and the Venetian government came in the form of a gift of silver in 1796 in an attempt to help stave off French forces. It didn’t work and Venice crashed and burned and the Jews were subsequently “liberated” by the provisional democratic government.

Just to summarize, the Jewish community in Venice monopolized poor-relief in the city, aided the noble class by providing loans to poor noble families, loaned money to the state for little to no interest (hey, like those negative rate bonds people have now!), and served as merchants in trade between Venice and the East…all through specific contracts negotiated by the governing bodies of their communities and the state of Venice!

-Why: Why does this matter at all in 2016? Well, if you hadn’t noticed tensions are quite high between people of different races, religions, and nationalities across the United States and Europe. Somehow Venice was able to navigate social, political, economic, and technological changes for over A THOUSAND YEARS while maintaining relationships with various empires and religious groups to the benefit of the Republic. Granted, there was no internet, modern warfare, or World Bank to muddy the waters and obviously ghettoizing+legislating people’s personal lives is not a modern solution to today’s issues, but surveying Venetian political history can provide a new way to analyze the relationship between the state and minority communities. The “Politics of Difference” as explained in Jane Burbank and Frederic Cooper’s work Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference 

Click it^

is a challenge faced by every empire and now, nation-states. Using local agents (in this case the Universita degli Hebrei) as mediators between communities and the government is one strategy that worked in several imperial contexts, including Venice. Also, while the Jewish community was in no way a monolithic group, their tradition of self-governance in Venice allowed the individual Jewish groups (Tedeschi, Ponentine, and Levantine) as well as the community as a whole to negotiate with the Venetian government much to their benefit. As we read above, the Venetian government extended contracts to the various Jewish communities to both help regulate and encourage their role in the economy. They also used Jewish merchants as middlemen between empires-most notably the Ottoman Empire and as middlemen domestically in aiding the urban poor. Unique geographic, cultural, religious, and political circumstances helped Venice survive for so long, but that doesn’t mean it’s political history cannot be adapted to contemporary political challenges. History could teach our leaders a thing or two about interacting with, meeting the needs of, and validating the role of marginalized communities.

**Let me repeat this again just in case anyone misunderstood: Venice was by no means perfect and I am under no illusion that Medieval and Renaissance governance of minority communities was a fun and happy space to occupy. Obviously, governing where people can go and who they bump uglies with and how they can dress is ridiculous. This is only meant to show that past city-states/empires/Republics/oligarchies were diverse institutions able to navigate a relationship with minority communities which promoted the prosperity and inclusion of those communities (while simultaneously using them for the benefit of the state), at least in part.**

I’m not entirely sure, but I think the next installment will be about some Fascists that were murdered in the Bronx which will include Clarence Darrow! Come back!

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The Grad School Struggle was Real…

21 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in School and Work

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Academia, brexit, college, eu, europe, european, european union, grad school, grad student, graduate school, italian, italiano, Italy, nationalism, NYU, politics, separatism, state, supranational, transnationalism, UNT

So, I’m annoyed, y’all.

First, let me tell you a lil’ story. I grew up in Georgia and Hawaii. Two states with a rich history of separatism/self-determination movements (Georgia in the Civil War, obviously, and Hawaii after the overthrow of Queen Lili’uokalani). Growing up in these two states (and with my mom’s family being from Alabama), I was well versed in the idea that people often do not feel represented/enfranchised under the rule of national governments. I remember seeing Mililani Trask on Oceanic public access programming and realizing there were many people in the United States that wanted self-determination and did not particularly feel like a national government satisfied that need. Fast forward 10 years. I went to Spain in 2008. When I got back one of the guys who I went on the trip with changed his Facebook profile picture to the words “Sinn Fein”. I was like, what is that? I found out it’s an Irish political party that advocate(s/d) separation from the U.K. and the establishment of an independent Irish nation. So, I obviously kept researching and realized separatism and dissatisfaction with national governance is a huge issue all over the world. There are separatist political movements everywhere, even in Italy. I went to Italy for the first time in 2006 and I’ve been back three times since. I fell in love. I want to live there and plan on retiring there if I don’t get to live there in my younger years. Anyway, through my research I learned that there was an active culture of separatism in Italy-both Eurosceptic movements and movements which advocate the separation of northern Italy from southern Italy. In 2011, I was accepted to UNT for their M.A. program. I concentrated on Modern European History. I was dead set on studying post-World War II European Political History and specifically the history of regionalism and the rise of separatist, self-determination movements like the Basques, Catalans, Padanians, Irish, etc.

Well, I went into graduate school completely ignorant of the process. I didn’t know anyone that had gone to graduate school for any degree other than for early childhood education. I thought I was going to be taking classes from experts and they were going to lecture me regarding what they knew about historical events and help me explore my interests. I thought it would be several hours of fascinating lectures a week, about different geographic areas and eras and then independent study about my interests. I didn’t realize my studies would be dependent on what area the faculty focused on in their own studies and I also didn’t realize my studies and pursuit of my interests would be dependent upon the faculty’s publication schedule, sabbaticals, conference presentations, travel, etc. I also was unaware I would be expected to digest 300-600 pages of historic texts every week and churn out book reviews about topics that I was not particularly interested in or that I knew little to nothing about previously, with very little lecture time (where my auditory learners at, yo?). So, I wanted to study Contemporary (see also: post-WWII) Italian Political History and it turns out no one in my department focused on that. One professor worked on WWI and WWII Italian Military History, but that was the extent of it. My favorite professor focused on Medieval Italian history and said she could stretch to Early Modern, so that’s what I went with. After writing a really interesting seminar paper about Jews in Venice for a Reformation course (I am going to tell y’all all about it in another post soon) and taking a class about crime in Venice, I decided on Venice for my thesis. I wrote about the decline of Venice leading up to Napoleon’s takeover in 1797, including the importance and decline of the Jewish community in Venice. You can guess what that meant: no study of separatism in post-WWII Europe and no Political History outside of the context of Military History.

I got into the Ph.D. program at UNT but after a few personal issues, a lack of funding (which the University has since remedied for current Ph.D. students, thankfully), and the realization that I wasn’t going to get to study the topic I wanted to study, I left after two semesters. I applied to several other Ph.D. programs but wasn’t accepted to any of them. NYU accepted me to their M.A. program in World History so I took the plunge and moved up here. NYU had tons of classes about Contemporary Italian History and Politics and several other interesting areas like Fascism, Labor History, etc. While schedule conflicts with required courses and my job kept me from taking many of the classes I would have liked (like this kickass Italian History through Film class regarding Fascism w/Dr. Ben-Ghiat), I got to take several fascinating courses. My experience at NYU was much more rewarding in that sense. I still had to read 500+ pages a week and write book reviews about topics I didn’t care about, but I got to spend much more time on topics I liked and had many more resources for studying those topics. I will say, my time at UNT really saved me when I got to NYU! Having a firm grasp of the Habermasian Public Sphere and the importance of the Enlightenment on society and politics in Europe (I was so lucky that this was my first class in graduate school way back in 2011) as well as knowing how to “graduate read” and churn out reading responses was a godsend. My first class at NYU was a Ph.D. level course (unbeknownst to me and the other M.A. student that signed up) and I wrote an end-of-term paper about the failure of transnationalism in Europe and in Italy in particular. This paper became my Masters Essay (a mini-thesis NYU requires for History M.A. students). I took other courses about the ambiguity of the definition of Europe/European, the rise of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and a seminar course about American Labor History. I wrote several papers about Italian-American Fascism, Fascism in South America, European identity, and many other interesting topics. I again applied to several Ph.D. programs before I left NYU and was not accepted to them, so that was it.

So, why am I annoyed? I got my degrees, I got to move to New York City, I have a job… Well, fast forward a few months more and guess what? Foreign Affairs, Bloomberg.com, Boingboing.net, The New York Times, and The L.A. Times have all published articles about which topics? The history of Jews in Venice, the failure of transnationalism, the coming referendum in Italy, Fascism (both the ambiguity of the definition and Italian-American Fascism), and Brexit (aka the failure of the European transnational project). All things that directly relate to or overlap with what I wanted to study or have studied and written about over the last half decade! I’m annoyed I wasn’t accepted to a Ph.D. Program since the topics I’ve written about all relate to things that are obviously publishable and would have helped advance current discourse. Please be sure to check out those articles because they are all interesting. But, now that I know my interests and ideas are valid and relevant to current discourse (one of my thesis committee members at UNT strongly disagreed, so that L.A. Times article gave me life, haha!), I want to keep writing about them, even though I am no longer a student. In the coming months, I will post links to my original papers from 2011-2016 and then summarize, fix, modify, rehash, and expand upon my theses. All of the papers relate to the current political environment in Europe and Italy specifically or historical events that I find interesting.

So, now that you know about my academic journey in graduate school, join me! Let’s talk about stuff and *things!

*1. I will write in passive voice. 2. As you’ve already noticed, I have issues with comma placement and other thangsss (Hawaii public schools for the win!) so feel free to let me know if I make a grammatical error; know that I am aware of my ignorance and the probability that I’m going to master commas or anything else is pretty slim at this point in my life. 3. I will engage in debates and appreciate corrections. 4. If you attack rather than converse that’s fine and dandy but I won’t respond. 5. These posts will not be on a schedule and I do have another travel series planned which will interrupt this one in December/January!

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10-Step, 10-Ingredient, Chicken (or Vegan) Thai Fusion for $2.55!

19 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Food, Personal and Fun

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Academia, asian, asian fusion, bachelorette, budget, cheap, cheap eats, cheapeats, city, college, cook, cooking, cuisine, dallas to new york, diet, directions, fast food, food, food porn, foodie, foodporn, freshman 15, fusion, grad student, graduate school, healthy, international, meals, new york, New York City, organic, quick, quick eats, single, step by step, thai, thai food, tutorial, university, vegan, vegetarian, whole foods

The following recipe makes 8 servings at <$2.55 a piece!

Ingredients

All ingredients are organic, and vegan (excluding the chicken)!

  • 1 Pack 365 Everyday Value brand Spaghetti: $1.25
  • 2 Organic Chicken Breasts (omit or substitute for vegan/vegetarian recipe): $5.50
  • 1/2 Container Baby Bella Mushrooms: $1.50
  • 1 Container Baby Corn (fresh, not pickled): $4
  • 2 Cups Mixed Stir-frying Vegetables (i.e. broccoli, red bell pepper, green onions, water chestnuts, snap peas): $3
  • 1/4 Large Onion: $.35
  • 3 small cloves of garlic: $.10
  • 1-2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce: $.50-$1
  • 1 Bottle 365 Everyday Value brand Peanut Sauce: $3
  • Black Pepper: $.20
  • Red Chili Flakes: $.25
  • If you aren’t a fan of spicy flavors, omit the red chili flakes and black pepper and add roasted, unsalted cashews or peanuts for a more nutty flavor. Kaffir lime, ginger, bean sprouts, and basil are also tasty ingredients, found in many Thai dishes, that will add flavor without adding spice.

_____________________________________________________________________

Price: $20.25/8=$2.53 per serving!
Time: <35 minutes
IMG_7458
Notes
*All ingredients were purchased at Whole Foods in NYC. Prices were calculated by dividing the price by the amount/number of servings I used and rounding up. i.e. an onion costs $1.34 and I used 1/4th of it. $1.34/4=$.33 and rounded to the nearest nickel is $.35. The price of spices are very liberal estimates as I don’t have access to a scale.
*For an even cheaper version, substitute fresh ingredients for frozen and buy in bulk.

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