Stanford professor Ari Kelman discusses the historical relationship with Jewish songwriters, label owners, and soul music—with a particular focus on their influences on Amy Winehouse.
Ari Kelman is the Jim Joseph Chair in Education and Jewish Studies at Stanford University. He is the author of Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio (California, 2009), the editor of Is Diss a System?: A Milt Gross Comic Reader (NYU, 2010), and a co-author of Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary (Alban Institute, 2011). He is also the author of a number of articles about contemporary Jewish identity and culture, among other things.
Kelman is interested in research at the intersection of Education and Jewish Studies, with an emphasis on the myriad ways in which people cultivate ethnic and religious identities and practices. His research focuses on questions of culture in all its manifestations including the material, aural, visual, and ideological. He is the coordinator of the Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies.