>> Elizabeth Peterson:
Today is January 16th, 2019.
This is Betsy Peterson, and I
am sitting here with Nancy Groce
and B Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett, and we are going
to conduct an interview with
Barbara today about her work
and sort of life and
career as a folklorist
and many other things
and many other roles.
So, we'll just start it off.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Okay, well,
I think when I found
folklore, I found my calling.
And, well, let me sort of
give you a sense of the path,
that I would say
from early childhood,
I had always been
interested in the things
that folklorists
are interested in.
I had read my way through all
of the Lang fairy tale books,
every color in the
Toronto Public Library.
There are blue fairy tale
books, there are pink,
there are yellow, they're red.
And I had always also been
very interested in I grew
up during the folk
music revival,
so I had been interested
in folk music.
I had been interested
in traditional crafts
and embroidery.
So, all the things that
folklorists are interested
in had interested me, but
had always just been a
personal interest.
They never had had any
there was no academic basis
for studying any of that
because, you know, high school,
primary school, and when it
came time for university,
I thought I ever did study
anthropology at the University
of Toronto, but it didn't seem
like a very interesting
or good department.
So, by default, I thought, you
know, I'll just get educated.
I'll do English literature.
I know the language and I
read, and I'll be educated.
But it was definitely not
because I had a passion
for English literature.
And for a variety of
reasons, my husband
and I moved to San Francisco.
He wanted to go to a San
Francisco art institute.
And I enrolled at the University
of California Berkeley
and did my senior year there.
And having gone to the
University of Toronto
and it being a British system,
when you did English
literature, that's all you did.
You had a whole year of Chaucer,
a whole year of Shakespeare,
a whole year of Anglo Saxon.
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
As an undergraduate.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett:
As an undergraduate,
an undergraduate.
And a whole year of the Anglo
Saxon language, and a whole year
of Anglo Saxon literature.
I never knew there was
enough Anglo Saxon literature
to warrant an entire
year, but apparently yes.
And so the only kind of
electives was art history,
which I took, and history
of architecture, philosophy,
which I took, especially
aesthetics.
Near Eastern literature we had
to, like the Epic of Gilgamesh.
And French.
And that was pretty much.
I wanted to study Chinese.
They said, "it's got nothing
to do with English literature."
So, and anthropology
and social sciences.
No. So, I get to Berkeley,
and my senior year,
they look at my transcript,
and they say to me,
"you have more credit
in English literature
than you need for our master's.
But what about your
breadth requirements?"
Breadth requirements.
I opened up the catalog.
It was like a kid
in a candy shop.
I thought, oh my gosh,
they're those folklore courses.
And there's that
history of textiles.
Two semesters on the
history of textiles.
And then there's, you know,
social science this,
and there's that.
Well, I just, I couldn't
believe it.
And also physics.
I had to take the
freshman physics class.
But, okay.
So, I go to see Alan Dundes
because I can't remember
now whether I had to see him
in order to get into his class.
I don't remember the reason why.
And I remember all
his file cabinets.
I remember him sitting
behind his desk.
And I sat down and talked
to him, and I told him
that I had read all the Lang
fairy tale books, and that,
you know, I knew how to do
40 different Cat's cradles.
And I knew how to weave.
I could do finger weaving
and massage weaving.
And I gave him the
whole, the whole story.
And it's like, you know,
basically, you know,
he basically said,
"absolutely, take my courses."
So, essentially, when I,
I finished my BA my senior
year, and I did my MA.
Even though it was in
English literature,
most of the courses
I did I did with Alan
and with Bertrand Bronson
and with Alan Merriam.
So, I really, I would say
I didn't need any units
in English literature.
I already had, you know, more
than I needed for a master's.
So, in essence, I
did a folklore MA,
but I got an English
literature degree.
And Dundes, of course,
being such a proselytizer
for the field, he said, "oh,
you must go on for the Ph.D.,
and you have to study
folklore, and the best place
to go would be Indiana
University."
So, I went to Bertrand
Bronson, I took two semesters
with Bertrand Bronson
on the English
and Scottish popular ballad.
And then, of course,
a lot on the tunes.
And that was a whole
other experience with,
oh, with Bronson.
And a meeting at his
house, at his home,
around his dining room table,
him putting on his old 78s
with these cowboys
singing these English
and Scottish popular ballads.
It was really a trip.
So, I remember going
to Bronson and saying,
"I need recommendations
to be able to get
into the folklore
program at IU."
And he said, "absolutely not.
I will not write
your recommendation.
This is professional suicide."
He said, "look," he said,
"you have to do a Ph.D.
in English Literature."
He said, "I have a Ph.D.
in English Literature,
and I studied the English
and Scottish popular ballads.
There's no reason
why you would what?
What's a Ph.D. in folklore?"
So, I never go a
recommendation from him.
But, of course, from Alan I did.
And I applied, and,
of course, I got in.
And everybody, all my
friends and everybody
in San Francisco said,
"are you out of your mind?
You're going to go
to Bloomington,
Indiana in the middle
of nowhere?
And how could you possibly
leave the Bay area?"
And I thought to myself, well,
it's the best place
to study folklore.
It simply is the best
place to study folklore.
And so we basically
packed up our stuff,
got on a Greyhound bus,
and we took a Greyhound.
We had no money at all.
Took a Greyhound
bus across country.
Got to Bloomington, Indiana.
Oh, it's another whole story.
But, anyway, that's
how we got there.
>> Nancy Groce: And how
long were you there?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: So, in Bloomington,
it was from okay, so we
went to the University
of California Berkeley '65.
>> Nancy Groce: And we being you
and your husband, Max Gimblett?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: And Max, and Max.
And so we were there '65 to '67.
Fall of '67, I started at IU.
And I was there for
three academic years.
And then in 1970, I got
my first tenure track job
at University of
Texas at Austin.
We were there for two years.
And then I had a big NEA grant
to do a major fieldwork project
on the Yiddish Folk Song
with the last living
singers, traditional singers.
So, we came to New York.
And then once in New York,
I got a visiting position
at Columbia University.
And then in '74, I got
hired at University
of Pennsylvania in Philly.
>> Elizabeth Peterson: This is
my timeline is a little bit off.
I thought you were at Texas
later, and Penn later.
But you were gone from Penn by
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett:
I was gone from Penn
by, I would say,
I had a sabbatical
in the fall of 1980.
So, my appointment
at NYU formally began
in the spring of '81.
>> Nancy Groce: And what
was your dissertation on?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Oh,
it was on traditional
storytelling
in the Toronto Jewish
immigrant community.
>> Nancy Groce: And
you have grown up in
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: I grew up in Toronto.
I grew up in Toronto.
And the dissertation really grew
out of the Yiddish folklore
survey that I did for the Center
for Folklore, Folklife,
I think it's called,
at the what was then called
the Canadian National Museum
in Ottawa.
Now it's the Museum
of Civilization.
I think they changed
their name again.
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
Is that where Shelley?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Yeah, Shelley Posen.
Yeah, later.
I mean, actually the time
that I was doing the survey,
Robert Klemush [phonetic] was
the director of the center.
>> Nancy Groce: Did you grow
up was singing in your family?
I want to talk a little
bit about your music.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Yes, well,
in my family, my father
played the violin.
He learned violin as a child.
And he loved.
And he, he loved Don Messer and
His Islanders, the Maritime kind
of Canadian Western, but
Maritime Eastern band.
And then they, you know,
had their music books.
So, on a Sunday morning, I
played the piano, and he would,
you know, play these
fiddle tunes
from Don Messer and
His Islanders.
And but my parents wanted
us to learn classical piano.
So, the three daughters, all
of us studied classical piano.
But there was a moment.
That would have been
the late 60s.
My mother's sister, okay, my
mother was the middle of three,
and her sister, who
was the oldest,
was a manufacturing
sales representative
for ladies' lingerie
and dresses.
And very successful.
And she had a suite
in the Royal Oak Hotel
where she had her showroom,
and she also lived there.
And I remember that, you know,
we were invited for dinner,
and she would order
in, of course.
And a cousin, my mother's
cousin was at the table.
And my mother's sister,
her name was Sylvia,
after the dinner was
more or less over,
she turned to the
cousin, to Mariam,
and she said, "Mariam, sing."
And Mariam started singing.
And I almost fainted
when I heard this woman.
This is a woman I
knew all my life.
I had no idea she was a
100% traditional singer
in my own family with a
whole repertoire in Yiddish,
in mixed language, which
is essentially a kind
of Belarusian, because she
was from the border area
between Poland and Belarus.
And she had this wonderful
bright voice, and this sort
of slightly kind of Belarus,
Belarusian vocal style,
and she had this
wonderful repertoire.
She was really difficult too.
Oh, my gosh.
She made my life miserable.
But that aside, she just
sat there, and I thought,
I had no idea in my wildest
dreams that this person was part
of my family and my life.
I had never heard her sing.
He had never heard anybody
talk about her singing.
And then my mother told me that
she grew up in, well, it wasn't,
they called it a village,
but I think it was more
like a very small, small
town, not far from the city
where my mother was born
and lived in [inaudible].
And she would come and stay with
my mother, my mother's family,
and they would be
in the same bed,
and my mother would pinch her
and make her sing
all night long.
So, it was clear
that they, you know,
those who really knew
her knew, and they,
and they loved her
songs and her singing.
So, then I recorded
her entire repertoire.
And they issued, first of
all, an LP, and then it came
out as a cassette, and
then it came out as a CD.
And actually, I think Library
of Congress gave us an award
for best recording of the year.
>> Nancy Groce: What
was the title of that?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett:
It was called Folk Songs
from the East European Jewish
Tradition, Mariam Nirenberg.
And Kay Shelemay I think was
on the jury or something.
So, it got an award that year.
So, that was, that
was a real revelation.
Now, I had recorded some songs
when I was doing the survey,
the Yiddish Folklore
Survey in the 60s.
I had, of course, some of the
people I recorded were singing.
But in terms of my own family,
I wouldn't say she's the one.
Mariam Nirenberg,
she was the one.
And that was just
an astonishing find.
I couldn't believe it.
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
What was the experience
of doing field research
with your own family,
or your community?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Well, you know,
what happened was that in
that first semester at IU,
I think I was taking [inaudible]
so I was taking the
Russian folklore class,
because Phoenix did everything,
you know, he was a historian,
but he taught Russian
folk, he taught everything.
And the textbook was Sokolov,
you know, was Soviet era,
big fat textbook
with a red cover.
I still have it, of course.
And I remember coming home at
Thanksgiving with the textbook.
I was sitting at
the kitchen table.
It was a Sunday morning.
And I'm reading, and
I open up the chapter
on death, and I start reading.
And I think, oh, gosh,
that's interesting.
And my father is reading the
newspaper and my mother is
in the kitchen washing dishes.
And I open it up
and I start to read.
I said, "listen to this.
They say that when somebody
dies, they leave the body
out with the feet
towards the door
so that the dead shouldn't
find their way back in,
but they put a glass of
water on the windowsill
and they open the window
and they put a little
towel there of the soul."
I said, "exit issue.
It should wash itself.
And it should dry itself off."
And my father says,
"that's what we did."
Really? What else did you do?
So, it kind of, I thought, wow,
you know, I should start like,
you know, asking
some questions here.
So, I knew, I mean,
I quickly discovered
that the biggest
treasure that I collected
from my parents were,
in fact, stories.
In my mother's case,
it was parables,
and it was the first
article, it was the first,
actually first paper I ever
gave the AFS was an analysis
of one of her parables.
And the first paper I ever
published was an analysis
of one of her parables.
And it was also translated
into Hebrew.
And it was just kind of
astonishing that that's,
that was kind of
a starting point.
And from her, I got
parables and proverbs.
And my, from my father, I got,
I would say stories and jokes.
But from my mother's
brother, who was younger,
he was a master storyteller,
an absolute master.
And everybody knew it.
And they all knew that he,
he could be a toastmaster.
He really, he could
be a standup comic.
And his were really traditional,
they were really
traditional stories.
So, when I discovered I had,
you know, Mariam was singing,
and [inaudible] was
telling his great stories,
and then when he would get
together with my father,
my father's brothers,
they would all sit around
and start telling stories.
Like, I had a joke telling
and a storytelling session
that was unbelievable.
So, it just kind of
mushroomed from there.
And then I kind of extended
out to people that they knew
and people that would
referred to me,
and some that were
Holocaust survivors,
some of them had come before
the war, and I really,
I just kind of, I just
kind of networked out.
And that was for the survey.
And then really from that, I
realized that I could really,
you know, create the
dissertation out of
that kind of material.
And I focused specifically,
although what I did
for the survey is I included
toys and magic and amulets and,
you know, obviously stories
and proverbs and riddles.
I mean, I included
everything in the survey.
But for the dissertation,
I focused on storytelling.
And I looked, for
example, at the way,
the way in which multilingual
storytellers really use the full
range of their linguistic
resources in a very witty way.
And that was the whole chapter,
was just on code
switching and storytelling.
Another one was on the parable.
It was on repertoire.
And an analysis really of the
artfulness of storytelling.
That was basically, that
was the dissertation.
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
Did your parents read it?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Oh, yes, of course.
And they were, of course,
you know, my parents,
my father finished seven grades
of Polish primary school.
And my mother, I'm not even sure
that she even finished
primary, primary school.
But very intelligent
people, very well read,
they loved music, and they
were absolutely dedicated
that their daughters
should be well educated
and should be independent.
So, they had a very, I thought
very progressive attitude
to their, to their,
to the daughters.
They said, "we want you to
be independent, you know,
God forbid you're left
without a husband or whatever,
but you should be able
to support yourself,
you should be able to, you know,
make your way in the world."
So, on the other hand,
education for them was
like a lifelong project.
So, in my third year at
IU, there was AFS meetings.
I presented this parable paper.
Right after it, Roger Abrahams,
Dick Bauman offered me the job
at Texas, which, you know, it
was Texas, now you're going
to go to Texas, from
San Francisco
to Bloomington and now Austin?
At the time, it was a
very sleepy state capital.
There was nothing happening.
I said, "yes, it's a wonderful,
it's going to be wonderful.
It's a tenure track job.
It's Richard.
It's Roger.
A chance to teach folklore.
I mean, what could be better?"
So, off we go.
But before, like when
I got the job offer,
so I go to a pay phone and
I call collect, of course,
because we have no money, and my
father answers, and I say, "dad,
listen, I just got a job.
I just got a job at the
University of Texas."
He says, "call back.
Your mother will be home soon.
You can explain everything."
It was like, but, whoa, you
know, what's the problem?
So then, the problem was, you
know, and he said, and you know,
he says, "you know, you don't
have to quit school," he said,
"you know that we'll
help you for as long
as you want to study."
And I thought, well, don't
tell my advisor that, you know?
Because he had he didn't
understand that you graduate.
Graduate from public
school, from high school.
But they didn't understand
that you actually stop
at a certain point and that you
go on and you have a career.
He didn't, he didn't
understand that.
So, it took a while
for them to get it.
But they got it.
And they were, of course,
very, very, very pleased.
But when you asked,
did they read it?
Then I put together the
manuscript for the book based
on the interviews that I did
with my father, because I had
like more than 40 years'
worth of interviews recorded.
And I, you know, I
transcribed part of them.
I got somebody else
to help me transcribe.
And then I took this mess of
material because I often had
to tell the same story,
you know, five, six,
God knows how many times,
so I took this material,
and I started to put it
into some kind of an order,
and then it became more
and more kind of settled.
And I would give it to him, the
whole, the whole manuscript,
and I'd say to him, "so, read it
and then mark anything that's
wrong or that's missing
or that's not clear or
something," and I'd see
that he was like this.
And I'd say, "so, so,
what do you think?"
And he'd go, "it
reads like a novel."
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
Was he pleased with that?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Oh, he loved it.
He was thrilled.
He was thrilled.
And it was such an
interesting process
because what would happen,
and that was different
than the dissertation.
The dissertation, I basically
was writing it in Texas.
And I was just writing it
furiously because I had
to finish it in order to
accept the job at Columbia.
And so, but on this, on the,
on the [inaudible] of July,
on the book based
on the interviews,
we really it was a real
collaboration at every stage.
So, what was really interesting
was to re interview him
in relation to what was in
the, what was in the book
that was either not clear or
that was something was missing.
And at certain points,
I just said to him,
"you know, just write it out."
And then actually he did some
writing, short, but he did some
of his own kind of
writing, and then that so,
it was kind of a very
interesting kind of mixture
of a way of working
to produce that.
But he, he loved it, actually.
It reads like a novel.
I thought, oh, good,
good, that's good.
[ Inaudible ]
No. Oh, no way.
No way. And, you know, I'll
tell you what was interesting,
prior to the creating
of that book.
So, I decided from
the very beginning
that the whole book would
be from the interviews.
And because I thought of all
kinds of ways of experimenting,
you know, really
kind of experimental,
and it would be me and him.
I thought, no, no me.
It's all him.
Number one.
Number two, I decided no famous
person writing an introduction
about how wonderful it all is.
No Cynthia Alguik [phonetic].
No Philip Roth.
No Eli Gazel.
No. Absolutely not.
The book would begin, and
he would introduce himself,
and it would start with
him, and he would be
in full command of
the whole book.
But, I would have my word.
And it would come
at the very end.
And it's called A
Daughter's After Word.
The whole book is in color.
A Daughter's After Word
is in black and white
with only drawings and prints
and that kind of thing.
And in The Daughter's
After Word, it was,
I think if anybody got that
far and wanted to read it,
I wanted that my
parents should be able
to that my parents should read
it and be able to understand it.
That was my and my assumption
is that they were intelligent,
that and at the same time,
I really wanted to try
to somehow capture on the one
hand a personal connection
to this whole thing,
but also my insights
into what it was we
had created together.
So, there's but no journey.
That's first rule.
That you can say
everything you want to say
in plain clear language.
You can. You just
have to want it.
Yes, you just have to want it.
>> Elizabeth Peterson: Now,
you said you had two sisters.
Were they interested at all?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Well, you know,
I'm the oldest of three,
and my sisters were very
supportive for sure.
But they really had
different lives.
My middle sister has
raised a wonderful family,
and she was a bookkeeper,
she's a travel agent,
and she took wonderful care, she
and her husband, of my parents
as they got older because
they were living in Toronto,
and I was living and had
been living in New York.
But she this was never,
this was never her project,
although she was
extremely supportive.
My youngest sister
passed away in her 40s.
She actually was a music teacher
and ran, conducted mass choirs.
She was, she was
really wonderful.
And she was very supportive too.
But this was really,
I would say,
the project that I
did with my father.
My mother was extremely
supportive.
And so was my husband,
who's an artist.
And so when my father
began painting,
they actually found a way
to connect with each other
that they had never
known before.
So, they would have
conversations about painting,
and they would go to art
exhibitions together,
and it was really
actually quite wonderful.
>> Nancy Groce: Excellent.
So, you, you finished
your dissertation,
went to Columbia, and then
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
So, what happened
when you were at Columbia?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: So, what happened was
that I got the NEA grant, and I
got it, applied for it through
and with the YIVO Institute
for Jewish Research.
And there was a Yiddish studies
program that was a collaboration
between Columbia's
linguistics department
and the Max [inaudible]
Center at D'Youville.
>> Nancy Groce: And just to
back for a minute, did you grow
up in a Yiddish speaking
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Yes.
>> Nancy Groce: And what flavor
Yiddish were you speaking?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Oh, you know, so,
of course, my parents,
my grandparents,
everybody spoke Yiddish.
And my parents sent me to
the Yiddish afterschool.
And the Yiddish afterschool
was not Sunday.
It was Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday.
So, it wasn't enough
that I had public school.
I had two hours a day of Yiddish
after school and piano lessons.
So, you know, if I'm
not a sporty type,
you can imagine why.
There's no tennis
lessons in my inner city,
you know, public school.
There was Danish rounders.
I don't even know what that is.
It's kind of like
baseball without a base,
and you've got a ball, whatever.
And I was, you know, when they
finished picking the teams,
whoever I thought
it was the leftover,
they got stuck with me.
So, in any event, so I went
to this Yiddish afterschool,
Yiddish was spoken at home, my
parents, if they didn't want me
to understand, they
spoke Polish.
And my mother is, being
from [inaudible] which is
on the border of Belarus, so
she's what they call a Litvak,
which is a different
Yiddish, and my father,
being from South Central
Poland, is a different Yiddish.
And then when I came
to New York,
I actually even earlier
came to the summer,
the Yiddish summer program in
New York, and in the morning,
I'd go to the intermediate
and advanced Yiddish classes.
It was, it was, yes,
it was organized
by [inaudible] and Columbia.
So, I would go to the
Yiddish classes, intermediate
and advanced in the morning.
And in the afternoon,
I would teach.
So, I would teach Yiddish
folklore or whatever it was
in the afternoon, but I
would do language classes,
because the Yiddish
that I had learned
as a child was not adequate
to what I felt I would need,
and that I needed
as a professional.
So, that's what I did.
So, I was teaching at Columbia.
I actually taught part time,
or a course or two at Columbia
for years after that, for YIVO,
because they had
this joint program.
But I started at Penn in '74.
I started at Penn full time.
>> Nancy Groce: And who was
at Penn when you got there?
That was sort of the
powerhouse program.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: It was.
It was Daniel Himes [phonetic],
John Shwid [phonetic],
Roger Abrahams, Henry
Glassi [phonetic],
of course Kenny Goldstein.
That's five.
Dan Banamose [phonetic].
And then there was
Erving Goffman.
And what's his name?
[ Inaudible ]
And I'm trying to
think who was the one
that did gesture
and stuff like that?
I'll remember who
it is in a minute.
>> Nancy Groce: Hall?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Not Paul.
Not Dell. I have to remember,
I have to remember who it was.
Also a very wonderful guy.
I know, it's on the
tip of my tongue.
>> Nancy Groce: And
who were the students?
Do you remember who
the students were?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Yes.
You know, it's interesting.
I have a better memory.
Well, I have to think about
it because I get mixed
up between the graduate students
at IU, because I remember
like Tom Burns, Elliot Oring,
Rosanne Jordan, Frank Deko.
I'm trying to remember.
And Rena overlapped.
And but then I think at
Penn, there's Lione, right?
I think Lione was there.
Heather Visler, Sholam Staub,
Nick Maloney, Saul Brody, yes,
and where was Shelley Posen?
Was he at Penn?
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
He was at Penn.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Was he at Penn?
>> Elizabeth Peterson: Yeah,
I thought Shelley
and Max were at Penn.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Yes,
they were at Penn, they
were at Penn, right.
Because IU and Penn,
I get them mixed up,
because I know them
afterwards as kind
of one group of folklorists.
But it was a great experience.
It was an incredible period.
It was a golden age.
Absolutely incredible.
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
That's actually what I
wanted to ask you about.
You went to UT, and
then Penn, and yeah,
that is a very heady
time for folklore.
I mean, great growth
and expansion.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: And also that I,
that I studied at
Berkeley, I studied at IU,
I taught at Texas, I
taught at Penn, and, I mean,
the only person ever
taught, although I did serve
on the dissertation committee,
was St. Johns in Newfoundland.
And then some of the other
smaller programs, MA programs.
But I also taught
at IU one summer.
But the experience, those four
flagship folklore programs
in their heyday, that is
a unique moment in time.
That is a historical moment.
And it will never be
replicated, you know?
And those folklorists
were in their prime.
They really were, you know,
Henry, Roger, Dick, Alan, Dan,
they were in their prime.
>> Elizabeth Peterson: Was there
a lot of collaboration, or,
I mean, how did you all
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett:
You know, it's interesting.
I would say that, there was
collaboration in the sense that,
let's say, like, for example,
Dick and Charles Briggs,
they were close collaborators.
So, there were instances
of collaboration.
And I think John and
Roger were very close.
But my collaboration
was rather, for example,
the Yiddish folk song project, I
led a whole team of collectors.
And so I don't remember
team projects as such.
And I don't remember
co authoring
or working collaboratively
on any projects.
I don't. The Yiddish folk song
project was a collaboration.
The project on the Jewish
photography in Poland,
the history of Polish
Jews through photography,
that was a collaboration.
>> Nancy Groce: That
image before my eyes.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett:
Image before my eyes
was a collaboration.
With my father was
a collaboration.
In other words, personally,
I work very collaboratively.
I co edited volumes with Jeffrey
Chandler, with Jonathan Carp.
I co authored with my father.
I worked with Lucy Dubashitsky.
I worked with Cissy
Grossman at the Jewish Museum
on the textile exhibition.
So, personally, I
have always, always,
all my major projects
were collaborative.
All of them.
And I love working
collaboratively.
When I played piano,
I loved duets.
And I especially liked
playing the bottom part.
>> Nancy Groce: So, you were
at you then were lured away,
because you were already
living in New York,
but you were lured away by NYU.
And could you talk a little
bit about how, because you were
at NYU, you still are associated
with NYU, but you gradually went
into performance studies.
Could you talk about that?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Okay,
so what happened was that
I was very happy at Penn.
I got tenure.
Everything was okay.
And I thought to myself,
it's a flagship program,
it's an Ivy League university,
you know, even though I had
to commute from New York, it
just seemed to me worth it.
It was just totally worth it.
And then I think that, much
of us, Nancy, Bev Cline,
Steve Zeitland, Amanda Dargan,
Robert Baron, there were a bunch
of folklorists in the
city, and we had nothing.
The folklore society was
more abundant at the time.
There was no folklore
program anywhere.
Only Hering was around.
But there was no yeah, exactly.
But there was no, there
was no folklore program.
There was no center.
There was just a bunch
of like folklore orphans
that were scattered
around the city,
and there was nothing happening.
And somehow we decided, and
I mean like we literally,
because Nancy was part
of our sort of group,
we decided we're going
to make something happen.
That even if we have
no institutional base,
and there's no, but how do
you how can we build awareness
and interest that
might actually lead
to something more institutional?
So, we started doing these
conferences on the folklore
of New York City,
working with Marty Cooper
and the [inaudible] fans.
And it was also a very
interesting time in the city.
This would have been
in the 70s and 80s.
>> Nancy Groce: Yeah,
'79 was the first.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: '79, exactly,
when the city was on
the verge of bankruptcy.
And what that did was
create an enormous opening
for vernacular expression.
It was the era of the community
gardens and the cities,
and subway graffiti, and
then it became breakdancing
and all the rest of it.
And it was, it was a kind of,
it was as if the city had lost
control of itself, and it was,
you know, going down
on the one hand.
And on the other hand, you
had all these vacant lots,
and people were just
simply taking them
and doing things,
extraordinary things.
So, we organized these
conferences and these events.
And it was, I would say,
it was kind of, you know,
if we can't do it
institutionally,
we'll just do it ourselves.
So, in the course of all
of this, I approached NYU
because I heard, oh, I know, I
saw some fliers for a seminar
in performance theory.
We did performance theory,
you know, in folklore.
So, I thought, oh,
performance theory.
Really? And I look up
who's teaching the seminar.
Richard Shepner.
Didn't know who he was.
Barbara Meiherhof,
Erving Goffman,
there was I think Alan Aland.
I can't remember now.
Several other people.
But I certainly recognized
Goffman, Meiherhof, et cetera.
And I thought to myself,
who's this Richard Shepner?
So, I call him up, and I
said, I'd like to meet you.
I think that we have some
things to talk about.
And he, at the time, had a
little apartment in Italy.
And he's a very I love the guy.
He's a very dear friend.
Anyway, I went to see him,
and he's sitting cross legged
on the floor, barefoot, you
know, writing, or something.
And this is our first meeting.
And we get talking,
and I say, listen,
we want to organize
this conference,
and we think maybe it would
be, maybe NYU would be a host,
because we had done
it [inaudible].
And so then he introduced
me to Brooks Macnamera
who was his colleague who
worked on popular entertainment,
vaudeville, and stuff like that.
And they all thought
it was kind of good.
And they helped us to get
NYU to be their venue for one
of our big folklore New
York City conferences.
So, that's how I
got to know them.
And then out of the blue, I
get a phone call from Richard.
And he says, hi, Barbara,
this is Richard Shepner.
How would you like to
chair our department?
I said, well, at the time,
it was a graduate
department of drama.
Number one, I had
absolutely zero in interest
in chairing a department
of drama.
But I also had zero
interest in chairing.
I said, well, not really.
And he said, how about lunch?
I said, sure.
So, we'll start with lunch.
So, they book a table
at the Grand Cachino.
May it rest in peace.
It was a beauty.
It was one of those great
old time village restaurants,
Italian restaurants.
You go down a couple of stairs,
and inside it's all dark green
with sconces and white
tablecloths and old waiters.
So, we meet at the
Grand Cachino,
and it's a small merry
band of Richard Shepner,
Brooks Macnamera, Michael
Curby and Ted Hoffman.
And the first thing that
impressed me was that these guys
like each other and
they get along.
That was very impressed.
The second thing
that impressed me was
that they were actually involved
in off off Broadway
experimental performance,
but they were teaching
drama from, you know,
Antigone to allele,
something like this.
So, there was a complete
disconnect
between the performances
that they were making
and what they were teaching.
And the third thing was that
this performance theory seminar
that Richard had been
running was, in fact,
the kind of laboratory for
the developing of a new field.
And that, they were
looking for someone
to co chair their
department because the dean,
who was a concert clarinetist,
that had been the head
of a record company, Columbia,
or something, had said to them,
you either get your
act together,
or I'm going to close you down.
So, they decided to
get their act together.
And what did that mean?
That they were going
to hire a chair.
They were going to change
the name of the department
from graduate department
of drama to the department
of performance studies.
And they, they were going
to, you know, make it happen.
And they asked me if I
would chair the department.
So, I thought, well,
performance studies,
this already is something
I can wrap my head around.
Chairing, not really.
But, maybe, maybe
I can convince them
to create a folklore department.
This is delusional.
This is how I was thinking.
And I remember calling up
Alan Dundes and saying to him,
would it be a complete
betrayal to the field if I were
to leave this folklore,
you know,
department at Penn
and go to NYU?
And I said to him, and I
checked all the courses
through the whole university,
and I can see how if I take
from the school of Ed and
from the English department
and from here and from there,
I can put together a whole,
and I put together a whole
curriculum for the folklore,
and I went to the dean who's
hiring me to chair a department
of performance studies,
and I presented him
with a folklore program.
And, of course, you know,
he was a very wise guy.
He just sort of sat
there and, oh, really?
What are you thinking?
So, so then I thought,
well, maybe,
you know, I'll take the job.
It has the advantage.
I'd be in New York City.
I wouldn't have to commute.
And while I'm there, and
I still had the illusion
that I would be able to create
a folklore program at NYU,
which was, you know, really
completely ridiculous.
And then would I really discover
and then the other thing was,
I was convinced they
made a terrible mistake,
that they did had no idea
what they were doing,
and that about two years
later, they'd figure it out
and it would be too late.
Because it was too late
the moment they hired me
because I was with
tenure anyway.
So, I developed my first course.
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
Which was what?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett:
The aesthetics of everyday life.
And I was convinced that
absolutely first of all,
I had to defend it to
the curriculum committee,
because they couldn't figure
out what the hell it was about.
And, of course, it was
all fieldwork based.
And it involved going out into
the city, to stations to cross,
poor place, you know
[inaudible] and it was, oh,
it was Chinese New Year,
it was all that stuff.
It was black churches preaching.
And I was convinced nobody
would take this course.
And that, then they would
see what a disaster it was,
that they had hired the
wrong person, and, you know,
what are you going to do?
What are you going to do?
So, it was early subscribed.
And I look around the room.
I say, who are you and why
are you taking this course?
Choreographers, directors,
actors, dancers.
And what they said, and I can,
you know, then I understood,
they said, listen, we've
had enough theater history
and enough of drama
and everything else
to last us a lifetime.
And the kind of performance
that you're creating
that we're creating
out of everyday life.
It was in a period
of post modern dance,
and it was a period of
environmental theater.
And so it was, it was
really a very special moment
in the history of
the avant garde
in New York, and
off off Broadway.
And so I really discovered
an extraordinary group
of very creative, very
dedicated students
who were extremely receptive.
They loved it.
And I basically then
sort of found my footing.
And the wonderful thing
was that I was teaching,
what did I teach, I
taught Jewish folklore.
I taught what I called
museum theater, food ways.
Well, food and performance.
But basically.
Always with which had been the
hallmark of my work anyway,
with a performance
approach anyway.
So, I was the one who really
did basically everything
and anything that was not
a formal stage production.
So, let it be circus
parades, ritual, festival.
And so did Richard.
He did too.
But mine would also
include storytelling.
It would include graffiti.
It would include food.
It included sort of
all the kinds of things
that folklorists would, would
do, but done with this very much
of a performance angle, I would
say, which I could easily,
and might very well have
done in a folklore program.
Wouldn't have been
any different.
So, that's what I did.
>> Elizabeth Peterson: Did
Richard Shepner, when you had
that meeting with
the four of them,
do you think they had the
sense that this seminar
that he was teaching, that
you said was the core of the
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Yes, yes, yes.
I think they knew.
They knew that that was that.
And you know what was
interesting is one
of the reasons that
I think, I mean,
I hope there other reasons,
but one of the reasons
that they invited me to
take the position was
that I didn't come from theater.
They were worried if they
hired somebody from theater,
they would never
ever ever be able
to take this very strong non
theoretical, in other words,
it wasn't that they
didn't teach theater.
They did. Like stages
and technology
and drama teaching and what not.
But they really wanted to
make sure that they were going
to do performance studies
and that it would
not be defined first
and foremost as theater plus.
So, that was important to
them that I didn't do theater,
but that I did do
performance in everyday life.
That was how they
understood what I did.
So, that was, so that was okay.
And it, you know, it was,
Debra Ketchner was on faculty,
so there's another folklorist.
Yeah, so actually finally,
it turned out to be really
the gift of a lifetime.
It was, it was a great move,
a really, really great move.
And wonderful colleagues.
To this day, that
faculty gets along.
To this day.
And the entire time,
since I came there,
since I could see what was
going on in the early 80s,
these are people who
are really good people,
good scholars, and
they get along.
And I think that's, you know,
that's really very precious.
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
Yeah, it is very precious.
Did moving to performance
studies and beginning to kind
of combine or integrate
contemporary art
or avant garde approaches with
traditional art, vernacular art,
was that a leap, was that
just a natural progression?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: You know,
I'll tell you what
was easy about it,
and that is that if you look at
the history of the avant garde,
particularly, I'd say, sort
of like Bauhaus and more,
you see a rejection of
traditional stage performance,
and an embrace of, you
know, cranes and circus and,
in other words, a kind of
rejection of the conventions
of theater, and a discovery
of the, if you will,
potential for artistic
inspiration
from industrial structures.
I mean, literally.
And from traditional
performance.
So, there was a way in which the
avant garde had already prepared
the ground by saying that we
take our inspiration from,
you know, parades and speeches
and circus and carnival,
and all these other forms.
So, I think, I think that
there was a kind of common,
there was a kind of
convergence there,
right sort of at the heart of
the historical avant garde.
So, and I had always been
interested in, I mean,
I'm married to a contemporary
artist, so had always been
around the contemporary art
scene, and, you know, for music,
for theater, performance,
as well as the visual arts.
So, in terms of my
own life, I was living
in all those worlds anyway, and
so was very comfortable in them.
And so in a sense, it was
no, no big leap for me.
Not at all.
>> Elizabeth Peterson: Actually,
because I had wanted to ask you
about your husband, Max,
and his career as an artist,
and how that may
have influenced you,
or what was that like,
being, or is like?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: You know,
I'll tell you what's
interesting is
that when we first got together,
I was very interested in, well,
I always gravitated more
towards, I would say,
surrounding textiles, and
I taught arts and crafts
and ran arts and
crafts programs.
So, but I was never
that interested
in painting a drawing.
That wasn't my thing.
But ceramics, weaving,
leather, copper, enamel, 100%.
I was cool with that.
In fact, I even belonged to the
committee of handy craft skilled
and demonstrated for them.
So, material culture, yes.
And when I met my husband, he
was a potter, he was a ceramist.
He then sort of shifted
from ceramics to painting.
And we actually were
both going to art classes
at night, drawing and painting.
And at a certain point, we
just needed division of labor.
He did the visual thing, and
I would do the other thing,
whatever it was, you
know, writing, literature,
you know, whatever it was.
And so in a way, what was
very gratifying for me was
that that part of what I
loved, I would live with.
And that I would, that I
would be doing something.
It wasn't that I was
doing what was left over,
the something else.
But there were a
lot of other things
that I was interested
in in doing.
And I was also on an academic
path, which he was not.
He, actually, his
mother took him
out of school when he was 15.
So, he's a completely self
taught self made person.
And I'm the exact
opposite, you know?
I kind of went to the
ends of the Earth.
I decided that, the
experience I had was this.
I spent a year in Israel between
high school and university.
I was 18. And I remember
that when I was there,
I got very interested
in Yemenite,
Jewish Yemenite embroidery,
which is fantastic.
And the curator responsible
for that material
in the ethnographic division
of the Israel museum,
was very kind, and gave me
access to that material.
And then in that, during that
year, she said to me, you know,
if only you had a
bachelor's degree, she said,
I would hire you, or
something to that effect.
And then when I heard
that, because I was just
out of high school, and I
was obviously going to go
to university, I said to myself,
no one will ever again say
to me, if only you had
a bachelor's degree,
a master's degree,
a Ph.D. Never.
I will go the whole route.
And there will be
nothing missing.
So, I think that that
really gave us two very
different paths.
Max went the art route and
I went the academic route.
But our mutual interest
in the arts was something
that we shared all our lives.
>> Nancy Groce: You
brought up museums.
Do you want to talk a little bit
about how you got into museums?
I hear you were happily
teaching away at NYU.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Yeah, yeah,
but I'll tell you, the thing,
the crazy thing about museums,
I just, you know, really,
really and truly
started with childhood.
It started literally
with my going
to the [inaudible] museum
every single Saturday.
Six floors.
I did one floor a week.
Each Saturday, a
different floor.
And they had two totem
poles up the stairwells.
This is a Canadian
museum, of course.
They had Native Americans
on the basement.
They had, you know,
mannequins in big glass cases,
rubbing sticks together
to make fire.
And, of course, all
kinds of, you know,
Native American artifacts.
And then the main floor,
they had fantastic geology.
And then they had great
Greek attic vases.
And they had fabulous
China collection.
And they had decorative
arts and furniture.
And it wasn't like I was I mean,
I think I love the
Native American stuff,
and the Greek attic
vase was the best.
But it wasn't as
if I had a passion
for rocks or Chinese, whatever.
It just didn't matter to me.
And the best part is it was the
same every week year after year.
Nothing changed.
That was the best.
That was the absolute best.
And it wasn't an exhibition.
It was the collection.
Basically, it was
the collection.
And, you know, after I
had done several rounds
of these six floors,
I got desperate,
so I would go nearby
in Queens Park.
There was this Sigmund
Samuel gallery of Canada
that was a bit desperate.
That was usually good for
one visit every few months.
But that was Cornelius Krieghoff
and his beautiful paintings
of rural life in
19th century Quebec.
Well, you can imagine,
for a kid, this is, okay.
And then, you know, after
did that a few times,
I said I would go
further in the field
to the art gallery of Ontario.
And that was a group of seven.
And that was pretty good too.
But nothing could sustain me
like the [inaudible] museum.
So, my dream was to work there.
That was my dream.
And I was a kid.
But my dream was to be, like,
if I could have slept there,
I would have slept
there, but to work there.
And sure enough, when I
was 18, I actually got to,
I got a job in the
education department.
So, I started in the
education department
at the ROM when I was 18.
I remember working with Eugenia.
I can't remember her last name.
But I think if I remember
correctly, she was, well,
spinster is not a word you hear
these days, but in any event,
she was not married and I
don't believe ever intended
to or whatever.
And she was a vegetarian.
And she only wore rubber shoes.
No leather.
No leather.
So, but she, I don't know,
but anyway, she hired me.
I worked there.
And then I would say that
when I got to Berkeley,
I did this two semester sequence
on the history of textiles.
That was like I died
and went to heaven.
Absolutely delicious,
two courses.
Then when I got to
Texas, Indiana, no,
I did material culture
course with Warren Roberts.
It was terrible.
It was horrible.
No he would just make
a list on the board.
Chairs, tables, baskets.
It was just
>> Elizabeth Peterson: We went
to the cemetery in Bedford.
That actually was,
that was fantastic.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Yeah, but also he,
the best thing was when he
would bring in a Windsor chair
and he would just
wax ecstatically
about the Windsor chair.
He would put the Windsor
chair on the table,
and he would just go on and on
and on about the Windsor chair.
I mean, that's what I,
I remember about Warren.
That was material culture.
And that didn't go anywhere.
So, then when I went to Texas,
there was, the University
of Texas had a marvelous,
marvelous collection
of Mexican toys.
I can't remember who
made the collection.
I don't recall now.
But there was the
desire to exhibit it.
And I remember trying
to work on that,
but it never went anywhere.
And so it was really only
when I got to New York,
and the first opportunity to
do a major exhibition was the,
was the image before my eyes,
was on the photography
collection, with that wonderful,
with [inaudible]
this wonderful man.
And then on the strength
of that, the Jewish museum,
which is the venue
for the exhibition,
asks me to co curate an
exhibition of textiles
from their collection.
So, I had an opportunity to work
with their textile collection.
And that was a trip because
I was crazy about textiles
and had done a lot of them.
I had taken two semesters
on the history of textiles.
I was a weaver.
And so the opportunity to work
with that material
was just stunning.
So, that was that.
And then there was
the Smithsonian,
the folklife festival,
the bicentennial year.
It was in '76.
And then, I'm trying to think,
there were some smaller
things here and there.
But then I'm not sure how it
happened, but I got interested
in the history of how
Jews were exhibited
or how they exhibited
themselves.
And started to write about it.
And started to write
about, oh, I know,
there was that conference
that produced the book
exhibited cultures.
Yeah, Iven and Steve Lavine.
>> Nancy Groce: Yeah,
that's right.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: And I remember
that I wrote a paper
for that conference.
But I my paper was
towards the end.
And as I was listening to the
conference, I remember Alpers.
I can't remember her first name.
It was something
about visual interest.
That if something is
not of visual interest,
it shouldn't be shown, it
shouldn't be exhibited.
There's no point
because you only want
to exhibit something
that's worth looking at.
And I thought, really?
And I thought, I took my
paper, said, I'm not going
to deliver this paper.
And I sat there,
and as I listened
to all the people I disagreed
with, I put together my thoughts
and I stood up and
I gave it to them.
And then I went home
and I wrote it up,
and then it became
objects of [inaudible].
So, I think, I'm trying to think
if that was my first major essay
on a museum exhibition subject.
It might have been.
It might have been.
And I think this was, you
know, this idea of the poetics
and politics of culture was kind
of, I think, the kind of opening
that got me going in terms
of writing about museums
and exhibition and world
fairs and stuff like that.
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
I love the article
about the Los Angeles festival.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Oh, that was,
that was another
amazing thing, you know,
the idea that not
understanding it is
like a precondition
for appreciating it.
That, an original, as Michael
Kirby said, or Richard,
that they prefer to
turn the sound off
when they're watching
something, you know?
That this, there was
something about that
that I just found
so interesting.
But those, you know,
those are opportunities.
It's a real case, therefore,
conferences and those kinds
of events because they can
actually generate some kind
of insight or way of
thinking that just sitting
by yourself you just
wouldn't, it wouldn't happen.
>> Elizabeth Peterson: Well,
and across fertilization,
people coming from
different perspectives.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Exactly, exactly.
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
And then how did I think
through this work, this begins
to get you moving
towards UNESCO, or ICH,
Intangible Cultural
Heritage, Intangible Heritage.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett:
You know, I'm trying to think.
When that happened, I think
there was kind of a gathering,
one of many probably gatherings,
organized by the Smithsonian
in 2001, something like that.
And also Diana Taylor had
been working with Nordis.
I think she was with
the Paris office.
And they organized something on
heritage, intangible heritage.
So, there were a couple
of opportunities like that
that I was involved in that got
me really thinking about it.
Pardon me.
So, it was really
precipitated by that initiative,
to create the category.
And the attempt of folklorists
to deal with it, with, you know,
all of the, to help to
define it more sharply,
but on the other hand, to expose
the, how complicated it was
to be thinking in those terms.
And also, you know,
having identified
intangible heritage is
like letting the genie
out of the bottle.
Then you have governments trying
to own it and sort of, you know,
and all the issues, oh, I know,
I'll tell you what
was a critical moment.
A really critical moment
would have been around 1982,
when Edward Bruner
invited me to join him
to co teach a study
abroad program
for American undergraduates.
It was called international
honors program,
I think we called it.
IHP. It was established by
Margaret Mead many years ago.
And the idea was to
take American students
for a full academic year, and
everything would be homestays,
and they would be exposed
to other cultures, and,
you know, that kind of thing.
So, he had intended to
do it with a colleague.
And he had set it up as
a curriculum in tourism.
That it would be an
anthropology year,
but the focus would be tourism.
And things did not work
out with the colleague.
And at the very last minute,
I get a phone call from him.
I didn't know him ahead of time.
Would I like to be his
co teacher and join him
for this nine months
of study abroad?
And it was all it
was not about ship.
There was no ship.
We went on a ship somewhere.
We literally, you know, flew to
San Francisco, got disoriented,
and then, you know, it was
six weeks in Japan, in Cobey,
we went from Japan to,
where did we go, from Japan,
I think to India, or to Bali,
to India, Singapore for a week,
Nairobi, Cairo, Jerusalem.
I wonder if I left
something out.
And it was amazing.
But then I realized,
he put together a kind
of crazy curriculum.
I said, Ed, what are you doing?
Why in Japan are we reading
about Africa, you know?
Because he had some
anthropology curriculum in mind.
And I don't know whether he
was going chronologically
in the history of
anthropology or something.
And I said, Ed, why are we
in with the newer
when we're in Japan?
I said, and, you know, we
should, look, we should take it,
we are tourists, and your
curriculum is about tourism.
Let's just do it.
Let's really make it a
curriculum about tourism,
and we can do participant
observation
because we are tourists
basically.
So, we did.
Well, that turned out to be
the transformative experience.
That would set me completely
on the path for looking
at the relationship between
tourism, museum and heritage.
So, once I had that kind of
experience, and I had it now,
I had it now in six different
countries, and the beauty
of it also was that
when you study tourism,
you are usually studying a
circumscribed event or place.
You're studying a festival or
a performance and it repeats,
it goes over and over again,
or it's a site, and you go back
to it over and over again.
It's perfect for, you know,
a four or six week visit.
So, then I really, really
had a lot to work with.
And we co authored a very nice
article called Messiah Mulan.
Really fascinating
case study in Kenya.
So, I think that he
I have to credit him
with taking me along
this tourism path.
I don't think I would
have done it otherwise.
I think I was put
off by tourism.
And, in a way, that's always,
for me, a kind of signal
that my resistance to the
topic is usually a sign
that I should figure out why
I'm having a problem with it.
And then I discover there's
something there that's really
worth exploring.
So, that, that kind of a thing
was a very big factor also.
>> Elizabeth Peterson: Now,
did that experience then
when you went back to
NYU teaching, I mean,
did it impact the way
you were teaching?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Absolutely.
I then taught that material.
That's my tourist productionist
course came directly
from that material.
And, of course, then I
incorporated American material,
like Plymouth plantation,
and always I did experiential
learning, so it meant fieldwork
and taking students out and,
you know, doing stuff like that.
>> Elizabeth Peterson:
I don't know how we are.
>> Nancy Groce: Well, we're
getting toward the end of time.
Yeah, but we'll do
a little more.
Can you just touch briefly on
how you got the gig in Poland?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Oh, you know,
I'll tell you what
was fascinating.
I feel like I've had
interestingly enough,
I feel like what I've done
in the public sector
has been more important
than anything I've done
in the academic world.
That's how I feel.
And I know that's odd because
I remember in the development
of public folklore, the feeling
that academics was
the gold standard,
and public folklore was somehow
rather a consolation prize,
which I've always argued
against, as you know.
And as somebody that's worked
in both fields, both areas,
as an academic and as
somebody in the public sphere,
I think that when I
think about the projects
that I feel I've had the I've
made the greatest contribution,
it's image before my
eyes, it's the project
with my father, it's
this museum.
These are big projects.
They're major, major projects.
And they've had, I think,
more impact than, I mean,
I think they've had more impact
in my academic work, actually.
I think they are the better
for having done the
academic work, for sure.
And it's not a matter
of either/or.
On the contrary,
obviously, these are related.
So, what happened
was around 2000,
I heard like in the air they're
creating a museum of the history
of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
And there was never
another sentence.
That's all I heard.
I thought, that really
doesn't sound very promising.
Maybe it's some weird guy
who's got some cockamamie idea,
you know, and maybe he's
thinking I'll make a broad
exhibition somewhere.
And it's Poland, it's Warsaw,
and nobody knows
anything about it.
And I think to myself,
if it's anything serious,
there would be more information.
Then in 2002, I get this
phone call from [foreign name]
who was the leader
of the project.
And he said, you know, would I
he said he's coming to New York.
He would like to
show me the project.
Would I meet with him?
I said, sure.
So, we meet at the Polish
Consulate in New York,
which is on Madison Avenue.
It's a beautiful French mansion.
It was beautiful.
It is a French mansion.
And now, of course,
they've refurbished it.
But when I went there in 2002,
it looked like the Red
Cross had just evacuated.
It was, you know,
bare light bulbs.
It was little cubbies.
They divided everything up.
It was dingy.
And now they've really,
it's beautiful,
they've fixed it up beautifully.
And he was in a guest suite
at the very top floor.
And it was like this sort of,
I don't know what Louis it was,
furniture, that thread bare,
and anyway, one of those Louis,
so he got out his little laptop
and he showed me the project.
And I say to myself, wow,
that looks interesting.
So, he goes back to Warsaw,
and he calls me a while,
a couple of months later, would
I come to Warsaw for a week
to review the work
they had done,
which what that meant
was three things.
Outline of the historical
program,
which was like 120 page
document of the history
from 960 to the present.
Two, a database of
materials that could be useful
to make the exhibition, whether
we have the originals or not.
And three, the master plan.
They already had a draft of the
master plan for the exhibition.
So, I said, sure.
So, I go, and they have their
offices are they rented an old
little house in the
northern part
of the main part of the city.
And like the floorboards, you
could see down to the Earth.
And I'm thinking to myself,
in this little house
that's falling apart,
and they're making
this, they're trying
to make this massive
major museum?
I, you know, I don't know.
And they put me up in this hotel
where clearly the owner's wife
or something had made the
bedspreads and the curtains
and the fluorescent
turquoise and orange.
It was, it was 2002.
So, I was really impressed.
And I wrote a report.
And the fundraiser in New York
read the report, and he said,
well, now, he says, you know,
until I read your report,
I didn't really know what
the project was about.
So, clearly, I got it and
was able to communicate
to them what they
were actually doing.
And we stayed in touch.
So, how did it come about?
Michael Steinlove, who was an
old and dear colleague of mine,
teaches at Grets
[phonetic] College.
And he had been working closely
with Yesia [phonetic] in Poland.
And at a certain point, he
said to Yesia [phonetic],
who was the leader of
the project, he said,
you should talk to Barbara.
So, and Yesia [phonetic],
you know, being in Poland,
not being so connected to the
U.S., he didn't know who I was.
I don't expect that he would.
So, he called.
And then when we got
to know each other.
But it's pretty unusual.
Child of Polish Jewish
immigrants,
a child of Polish
Jews, with a specialty
in east European Polish
Jewish Yiddish culture
with museum experience.
And the museum experience was
not as someone who had only
and always worked in a museum.
But rather had been
thinking critically
and hopefully interestingly
about museums and their history
and especially the ways in
which Jews had been presented.
It's a very, very, very
unusual combination.
And with practical experience
and curating exhibitions.
Although nothing like, you know,
what they were envisioning.
So, we stayed in touch
and met periodically
and organized a panel at the
Association for Jewish Studies,
and also some sessions with
colleagues to critique the work.
And then finally, once
the museum is established,
actually founded in 2005,
then they were ready
to take the master plan and
develop it as an exhibition.
And that was when he asked
me to lead that process.
And that began in April of 2006.
>> Nancy Groce: Had
the museum opened?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: We opened the building
in April of 2013 and we
opened, we had the grand opening
with the exhibition
in October of 2014.
[ Inaudible ]
It's doing great, actually.
We have a wonderful
director, Daria Shtola.
And [foreign name] who
was, who led the project
for 15 years actually
really, really deserves credit
for having given it, for
having provided the vision
and given it the
shape that it took.
>> Nancy Groce: We
could probably go
on for hours and hours.
Can you, would you like to
tell us what your next big
project is?
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Well, yeah, actually,
what I want to do
now is write a book
about the making
of the exhibition.
That's what I want to do.
>> Nancy Groce: Well, you just
gave a wonderful Baucan talk
about the exhibition.
So, thank you so much
for coming to Washington.
Thank you for sitting
for this interview.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Thank you, Nancy.
I appreciate it.
>> Nancy Groce: And
we'll have you back.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett:
I'm ready for part two.
>> Nancy Groce: Part two, yes,
thank you so much, Barbara.
>> Barbara Kirshenblatt
Gimblett: Thank you.
Thank you very, very much.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.