One reason the #EMCA analytic mentality & style of argument are sometimes seen as Jewish may be resemblance to the 'Litvak style' of Talmudic scholarship documented by Shaul Stampfer in "Lithuanian Yeshivas of the 19thC Creating a Tradition of Learning" liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/products/87939 >
This famously painstaking, detail-obsessed and discursive approach to doing analysis was first practiced in a Yeshiva in the Belarusian town of Volozhin, and became the dominant style of Talmudic scholarship across Lithuania in the early 19th Century en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volozhin_… > 
One way the 'Litvak style' may be related to conversation analysis is its use of an intense, live, discursive method for studying the 'oral law' of the Talmud, comprising the biblical-era Mishnah and its ~5th Century rabbinic interpretations, i.e. discussions about discussions >
Another resemblance that anyone who's been to an #EMCA data session might recognize is the Chavrusa: a small group that reads aloud together, sometimes (originally by necessity) from the same book, offering up points and counterpoints to each other's interpretations & arguments >
In terms of analytic attitude, the Litvak style shares with #EMCA its strong commitment to evidence-backed argument. The star pupils at a Yeshiva are the ones that can challenge the rabbi's authoritative interpretations and win over others by presenting persuasive evidence >
The Litvak style of Jewish education would have been the most prominent in the early-mid 20th C in the USA, especially post-war with the influx of Jewish Eastern European refugees to US cities, and I've read that both Sacks' and Jefferson's parents were of Russian Jewish origin >
I don't know if #EMCA's Jewish founders studied Talmud, but it seems likely that Sacks' legal training would have involved learning many of the same analytic attitudes and rhetorical styles - there's a very well-trodden pathway from the Yeshiva to professional legal practice >
While there are many yiddishisms throughout Garfinkel, Jefferson, Sacks and Schegloff's writings, and I enjoy those, I suspect we could map the #EMCA analytic attitude onto many cultures and forms of religious study. Still, if someone wants a PhD topic, this would be a fun one! |
