Masada Performances : the Contested Indentities of Touristic Spaces
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2013 Masada performances : the contested indentities of touristic spaces Ariel Gratch Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Gratch, Ariel, "Masada performances : the contested indentities of touristic spaces" (2013). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 730. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/730 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. MASADA PERFORMANCES: THE CONTESTED IDENTITIES OF TOURISTIC SPACES A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Communication Studies by Ariel Gratch B.A. Kennesaw State University, 2003 M.A. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008 May 2013 לסבא וסבתא Chapter 5 is for Miles Richardson ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is hard to express the depth of my gratitude to all those who helped me get to this point. I guess it makes the most sense to just start in Israel and work my way back to where I am now. First, my heartfelt thanks to Ido, Roni, and Yossi Fridman. Roni and Yossi, thank you for opening your house to me, finding me a place to live in Arad, and truly making me feel at home. And Ido, I would have been utterly lost in Israel without you. Even though I was constantly talking to people, ethnographic research can feel very lonely. Your friendship is the greatest thing I took back from Israel. Thank you to everyone else at moshav Ein Vered, especially Nurit, Moshe, Omer, and Einat. You made me feel like I was 7 again, in the best way possible. And thank you to Lyora, Tamar, and Noam Bank for the same. Thank you to Eitan Campbell and everyone who works at Masada National Park. I can’t imagine feeling more comfortable doing research in the middle of the desert. Your love for and commitment to Masada is, indeed, contagious. And thank you to the many wonderful travellers I met in the desert. There are so many of you who helped make the desert come alive. Thank you to Eliav Nahlieli and everyone at the PROGRAMA 1 studio. I wish I could give you more space in this dissertation. Your work is fascinating. Thank you to Tamar Katriel for your scholarship and for inviting me into your office and into this conversation. Performing the Past really helped get this ball rolling! Thank you to Asaf Genosar, Dor Turgeman, Or Ben-Melech, and Ofer Seker. You’re rock stars, the lot of you. Thank you to Shira Gratch and Dan Kilker for helping me in more ways than I can count, on this project and on everything that has led up to it. iii Thank you to all my backers on kickstarter for helping me get back to Israel and finish this research. Special thanks to Orgad Gratch, Arlene Thompson, David Schwarzman, Irwin Weitz, Nadine Barocas, Mike Rupert, Camilo Mejia, Will Greenberg, Tamara Schwartz, Dustin Burcombe, Doug Pletcher, and Cliff Hensley. This would be a much shorter document were it not for you! Thank you to my family, Abba, Effie, Mom, Steve, Cari, Rhianna, Greg, Morris, Aurora, Shira, Gilad, Jason, Josh, Summer, Austin, and Scarlett. It’s difficult to be so far away from you, but I know that no matter where I go in the world, you will all be supporting me. I love you all. And Abba, I can’t thank you enough for the constant presence you have been in writing this dissertation. Between your translations, your commentary, and your help in contextualizing many of the events I write about, I know that I could not have finished this without you. Thank you to my advisors. John Gentile, you instilled in me a love for performance and scholarship that has given me purpose and direction in my life. Renee Alexander Craft, you taught me how to be compassionate and rigorous in my work and to love the people I work with. Michael Bowman, I could go on and on, but I’ll just say this: writing can be lonely work. You have been a mentor and a friend. You guided me through the most difficult task I’ve ever set for myself and your faith and support never wavered. Thank you. Thank you to my committee. Nathan Crick, your office door was always open and that served an immense comfort and reassurance throughout my graduate career. Ruth Bowman, you consistently made me feel like my work was fascinating, especially when I was questioning its worth. Carl Freedman, you helped me see the larger picture and my place in it. Stuart Irvine, thanks for keeping me honest. iv Thank you to the Communication Studies faculty at LSU that have helped me throughout my time here. Special thanks to Trish Suchy, Rachel Hall, Graham Bodie, Loretta Pecchioni, and ReRe Shaw. And of course, thank you to Tracy Stephenson Shaffer. As much as graduate school is about writing a dissertation, it’s also about teaching. You have been and will continue to be my inspiration and an exemplar for what it means to be a great teacher. Thank you to my readers, Jennifer Mease, Jade Huell, and Danielle McGeough. Thank you to my fellow graduate students who have been a tremendous source of comfort and joy throughout this process. Special thanks to Benjamin Haas, Mike Rold, Brianne Waychoff, Lisa Flannagan, Brian Leslie, Ryan McGeough, Austin McDonald, David Tarvin, Derek Mudd, Eddie Gamboa, John LeBret, Holley Vaughan, Rebecca Walker, David Terry, Jonathan Riehl, Joseph Rhodes, Kaitlin Cannava, Sarah K. Jackson-Shipman, Travis Brisini, Emily Graves, Rya Butterfield, Shaughan Keaton, Michelle Pence, Stace Treat, Cameron Ayers, and Mr. Allyson Shaffer. And thank you Andy Reynolds, Julia Y, Kevin Gladney, Rory and Erin Schomburg, Johnnie Hoist, Melissa Krushat, Ann Mai Kilker, Nathaniel Sandler, Jaq and Hannah Baldwin, Paul Boshears, Shawn O’Brien, Zalmy Berkowitz, and everyone else who made this journey worthwhile. And, of course, thank you Lyndsay Michalik, a whole lot bit. Plain and simple, I could not have done this without you. Your artistry and scholarship made me want to be better and your support throughout made me know that I could. I love you and I’m so excited to start something new with you, wherever and whatever that might be. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY ......................................................... 1 Why Masada? ................................................................................................ 4 A Theoretical Approach to Studying Masada ............................................... 7 A Practical Approach to Studying Masada ................................................... 15 2 TOUR GUIDE PERFORMANCES: CRAFTING A MEANINGFUL EXPERIENCE ................................................................... 25 Guiding Tours and Framing the Tourist Experience .................................... 26 Framing Masada ........................................................................................... 29 Intimate Storyteller ....................................................................................... 32 Authoritative Narrative ................................................................................. 41 Dialogic Engagement .................................................................................... 48 Structured Communitas ................................................................................ 55 The Limits of Tour Guide Performances ...................................................... 64 3 THE ANGEL OF LIVING HISTORY: RE-PRESENTING THE PAST ......................................................................... 67 Living History: A Meaningful Experience/A Performance of Forgetting ..................................................................................................70 Preparing the Stage: Actors, Props, and Scene ............................................. 74 Masada Live .................................................................................................. 78 Accessing the Past ......................................................................................... 87 Performances Remember | Performances Forget .......................................... 91 4 SELLING MASADA: ENHANCING AND SUPPLEMENTING THE TOURIST SITE .......................................................95 Enhancing or Supplementing ........................................................................ 99 The Commodification of Masada .................................................................103 The Aura of Masada .....................................................................................106 The Masada Experience ...............................................................................110 Diminishing the Aura of Masada .................................................................113 Encounters with Other Tourists: Losing Control of the Tourist Site .........................................................................................115