Week 6: Faculty Review
This week we had our faculty reviews, where we bared our souls to two DAAP professors as they listened to us pitch our capstone ideas. I’ve been nervous about this presentation from the beginning of the semester, but it was mostly presenting nerves. I think I’ve mentioned before how much I loathe getting up and talking in front of people, especially when I have to talk about something personal to me. But I went in feeling confident about my idea. I presented to Tom Dunne and Matt Wizinsky, both of whom I’ve had as professors sometime in the past 4 years here.
In my presentation, I spoke about my project, the Jewish Holiday cookbook collection. For our capstone, we have to have at least 2 defined constraints. I’ve chosen three, audience, content, and medium.
My audience will be young American Jewish people, ages 18 to 30 who have lost touch with their religion/culture. Because of this chosen constraint, I will need to design a modern, engaging book while still relating everything back to the older history/culture of Judaism.
The content will come from all over. I’m going to find recipes for 5 different Jewish holidays, potentially Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah, Passover, and Purim. These are joyous holidays filled with traditions revolving around food and celebrations. I’d also like to include a section on the history behind each holiday, whether it’s its own book or a section of each book.
The medium will be print, I will be designing 5 books with each book talking about a different holiday. I also want to explore different ways of containing the 5 books, not just a box, but maybe a stand, make it into an art piece that someone would want to display so they don’t forget they have them.
The outcomes I’m hoping for are to educate and connect this younger generation of American Jewish people on their holidays and culture through food.
After my presentation, Matt and Tom both seemed interested in my idea. They asked me to clarify some things like what kinds of foods I would be including in the cookbooks, as well as what sect of Judaism I would be targeting, such as reformed, conservative, or orthodox. It was good for me to hear that, as I hadn’t thought too much about what kind of recipes I would include beyond what families already make for each holiday, and I had just assumed I would be targeting more reformed Jewish communities, because if you grow up conservative or orthodox you tend to either already know these things when you leave home, or you don’t leave home and you continue the traditions. I think it was Tom that made the point that if I’m targeting a younger audience I would need to include less complicated recipes to make, and I have to keep in mind that there are different holiday foods depending on where you are in the world.
They also pointed out that I should only do one of the five books, because I won’t have enough time to do all five well, and creating one perfect book is better that five okay books. I agree with that, but I think eventually, probably after I graduate, I’d like to finish all 5 books.
Now that the faculty review is over, I’m feeling so much better about my capstone. After hearing all of the feedback, I’m going to start researching recipes and the history of recipes. I am setting up an interview with my grandparents’ synagogue to talk with them about possible foods to research, as well as the history and significance of each holiday I’ve chosen. I’m excited to finally start working on this project!
