Biography
Chantal M. Tetreault (Ph.D., Linguistic Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin) is an Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department.
“My new research examines how shared notions of Jewishness and Jewish community are produced through a negotiation of practices (rather than beliefs) within a Reconstructionist shul (synagogue). More specifically, I consider what it means to be a Jewish community when both a shared monologic belief or a consistent practice is absent. Using oral histories and ethnography, I explore the co-construction of senses of community among Jewish adherents of apparent mixed beliefs and/or practices. Building upon a panel from the 2019 American Anthropological Association, I am currently co-editing a special issue for the journal Religion and Society (slated for 2021), which will feature my research on constructions of “sharedness” in Jewish belief and practice among oral history participants in a Reconstructionist community. This research is a collaborative project with Dr. Kirsten Fermaglich, whose research focuses on Jewish Academic Communities in the United States After World War II.”
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