High Point University professor Amanda Mbuvi will present on issues of race, religion, nationality, family, and identity
On Thursday, Sept. 19, at 7:30 p.m. in the Isabella Cannon Room in the Center for the Arts, Assistant Professor of Religion Amanda Mbuvi of High Point University will present on the topic of “Seeing Ourselves in Books: What a Jewish Transracial Adoption Story Illustrates about Family and Identity.”
In the children’s book “Rebecca’s Journey Home,” an American family’s experience adopting a baby from Vietnam and navigating issues of race, religion and nationality illuminates each of those modes of identity, as well as Jewish identity’s distinctive relationship to them. Although the book’s portrayal of Jewish identity remains within the confines of American racial logic, it also points to the potential of Jewish tradition as a basis for reimagining belonging that goes beyond the limitations of that approach to communal identity, so that any body can be seen, without qualification, as a Jewish body.
The event is sponsored by the Religious Studies Department, Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society, Jewish Studies, Asian Studies, African & African-American Studies, the CREDE, Elon Hillel, and the Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life.