SHU sociology professor awarded Jack Shand Research Grant

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — C. Lynn Carr, professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work in the College of Arts and Sciences at Seton Hall University, has been awarded a Jack Shand Research Grant from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Founded at Harvard University in 1949, SSSR is an interdisciplinary academic association that stimulates, promotes and communicates social scientific research about religious institutions and experiences. 

Carr received a $5,000 award to support her research on “Shiva in a Jewish Reconstructionist Community.” The qualitative sociological study investigates shiva among those affiliated with Reconstructing Judaism, a small yet well-established American Jewish movement/denomination. Sitting shiva is a custom traditionally engaged in by Jews upon the death of an immediate family member. During this time, community members traditionally comfort the bereaved with food and company, and gather together for prayer in mourners’ homes. 

Through ethnographic participant observation and interviews with RJ community members who have sat or attended shiva events, Carr hopes to learn why, when and how Reconstructionist Jews participate in shiva, how they experience these communal religious spaces, and what the occasion of grieving means for their relationships to Judaism and Jewishness. 

“I have chosen the sociologically interesting Reconstructing Judaism movement because it has been largely overlooked by social scientific scholars; its study may yield insights regarding belief, disbelief and identification within non-Orthodox American Judaism more generally. I focus on shiva because it has been suggested that it is a site of growing importance in non-Orthodox Judaic practice, and because I believe it to be a well-placed window in understanding contemporary Jewish identification — highlighting themes of belief, disbelief and community,” Carr said. 

According to Carr, her project could have significant impacts on understanding modern Jewry.

“First, while religious practice more generally has declined among non-Orthodox Jews — as well as among most other groups in the United States — those practices focused on mourning and remembrance of the dead persist,” Carr said. “This research project looks to answer why this is the case, asking how shiva is related to individual Jews’ conceptions of — and commitments to — Jewish community, religion and identity. Second, the project highlights an understudied movement in contemporary American Judaism. Most scholarly discussion of shiva has looked at Orthodox Judaism. Third, the recent necessity for social distancing due to the novel coronavirus may offer unique opportunities for this research project. Although the research project was not originally begun with this in mind, these extraordinary times may offer a special opportunity for investigating the impact and importance of shiva for Jewish identity and practice as well as the impact of social distancing on religious practice.” 

Carr’s last ethnographic project, involving more than a decade of fieldwork, culminated in a book on the Afro-Cuban Lukumi religious tradition, “A Year in White: Cultural Newcomers to Lukumi and Santería in the United States,” Rutgers University Press, 2016.

  Seton Hall University