Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Marks, Susan

Keywords

Babylonian Talmud, Dancing, Religion, Babylon

Area of Concentration

Religion

Abstract

This thesis examines the image of the tavern dancer in two passages from the Babylonian Talmud. Using contemporaneous descriptions of dance and taverns in combination with modern scholarship of late antiquity, this thesis unpacks some of the implications of this image in the context of broader concerns in rabbinic literature of the time. Modern dance theories are used to facilitate this exploration, and generate a model for understanding rabbinic anxieties about the body of the tavern dancer. This thesis argues that the body of the tavern dancer is a productive site for the exposition of rabbinic anxieties about how bodies generate and maintain community, individual roles and boundaries. Ultimately this thesis argues for the benefits of examining dance in the Babylonian Talmud more closely than previous scholarship has attempted.

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