“Show me what scares you, and I’ll show you your soul.”
In American Scary, noted cultural historian Jeremy Dauber draws a captivating through line that ties historical influences ranging from the Salem witch trials and enslaved-person narratives directly to the body of work we associate with horror today: from the taut, terrifying stories of Edgar Allan Poe to the grisly, lingering films of Jordan Peele.
Jeremy Dauber is a professor of Jewish literature and American Studies at Columbia University, where he has also served as director of its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. Jeremy grew up in a modern Orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey; went to Harvard and then Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, where he wrote about Hebrew and Yiddish literature – and while there, wrote the libretto for an opera that played in Boston and a movie that screened at the Cannes market (you can still find it bouncing around the lower cable channels late at night); came back to America and took a job at Columbia, where he now teaches about, among other things, Dostoevsky, Mel Brooks, graphic novels, and Sholem Aleichem.
To honor Jewish American Heritage Month, we tweaked our Book 3 section and asked Dauber to tell us about three books that shaped the Jewish American Story. In our conversation, we’ll also discuss how to get started reading Yiddish literature in translation, why American Jews may channel their fears more into comedy than horror, and how writing for mainstream American culture is also a Jewish act.
Jeremy Dauber’s Five Books:
1. A Treasury of Jewish Folklore by Nathan Ausubel
2. The Book of Esther
3. Three Books That Tell the Jewish American Story:
- Bread Givers by Anzia Yesierska
- Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
- MAUS by Art Spiegelman
4. 11/22/63 by Stephen King
5. American Scary by Jeremy Dauber
Other Books & Resources Mentioned:
- Tevye the Dairyman by Sholem Aleichem
- Miriam Karpilove, Diary of a Lonely Girl
- The I. L. Peretz Reader
- Sefaria.org
- It by Stephen King
- The Cafeteria by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Jeremy Dauber’s Other Titles:
Cultural Criticism:
- American Comics: A History
- Jewish Comedy: A Serious History
- Mel Brooks: Disobedient Jew
Yiddish Literature:
- The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem: The Remarkable Life and Afterlife of the Man Who Created Tevye
- In the Demon's Bedroom: Yiddish Literature and the Early Modern
- Antonio's Devils: Writers of the Jewish Enlightenment and the Birth of Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literature
- Landmark Yiddish Plays: A Critical Anthology
Young Adult:
- Press 1 for Invasion (PREORDER)
- Mayhem and Madness: Chronicles of a Teenaged Supervillain
The Five Books is a podcast that celebrates the role of books in Jewish culture. Join us every week for new Jewish book recommendations! Some of our episodes have included conversations with Yehuda Kurtzer (host of Identity/Crisis), Yael Van Der Wouden (author of The Safekeep), and Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews.)
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Hosted by Tali Rosenblatt Cohen
Produced by Odelia Rubin
Editorial and website support by Sarah Waring
Artwork by Dena Friedman
Music by Dov Rosenblatt and Blue Dot Sessions.