ASHTON, Dianne 1949-

PERSONAL: Born June 21, 1949, in Buffalo, NY; daughter of Irving (in business) and Miriam (a bookkeeper; maiden name, Keller) Ashton; married Richard M. Drucker (a teacher), October 23, 1988. Ethnicity: "Jewish." Education: Adelphi University, B.A., 1971; studied at Kibbutz Palmach Tsuba, Israel, 1971; University of Massachusetts—Amherst, graduate study, 1975; Temple University, M.A., 1982, Ph.D. (with distinction), 1986. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Jewish. Hobbies and other interests: Travel, music, art, reading.

ADDRESSES: Home—Cherry Hill, NJ. Office—Department of Philosophy and Religion, Bunce Hall, Rowan University, 201 Mullica Hill Rd., Glassboro, NJ 08028-1701. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA, lecturer in religion, 1986-88; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, teacher of general studies, 1987; Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, professor of religion, 1987—, director of American studies, and past chair of Department of Philosophy and Religion. Lecturer at Gratz College and Netzky Institute, 1986-88; Rutgers University, lecturer, 1988; guest lecturer at colleges and universities, including University of Utah, 1989, Temple University, 1992, Ocean County College, Bergen County College, and University of Maryland—College Park, all 1993, and University of Minnesota—Twin Cities, 1996.

AWARDS, HONORS: American Jewish Archives, Franklin fellowship, 1984, Rapoport fellowship, 1988, Marguerite R. Jacobs fellowship, 1999; Rebecca Gratz: Women and Judaism in Antebellum America was selected as recommended reading by New Jersey Council for the Humanities, 1998; grant from International Research Institute on Jewish Women.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Ellen M. Umansky, and coauthor of introductions) Four Centuries of Jewish Women's Spirituality: A Sourcebook, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 1992.

The Philadelphia Group: A Guide to Archival and Bibliographic Collections, Center for American Jewish History, Temple University (Philadelphia, PA), 1993.

Rebecca Gratz: Women and Judaism in Antebellum America, Wayne State University Press (Detroit, MI), 1997.

Jewish Life in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Historical Association, (University Park, PA) 1998.

Contributor to books, including Communication Theory and Interpersonal Interaction, edited by Sari Thomas, Ablex Publishing (Norwood, NJ), 1984; When Philadelphia Was the Capital of Jewish America, edited by Murray Friedman, Associated University Presses (Philadelphia, PA), 1993; Active Voices: Women in Jewish Culture, edited by Maurie Sacks, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 1995; Religions of the United States in Practice, edited by Colleen McDannell, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2001; and Women and American Judaism: Historical Perspectives, edited by Pamela S. Nadell and Jonathan D. Sarna, Brandeis University Press (Hanover, NJ), 2001. Contributor to periodicals, including Religious Studies Review, American Jewish History, Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review, Liturgy, and Transformations.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Research on holidays and rituals in American Jewish life.

SIDELIGHTS: Dianne Ashton once told CA: "I have loved the process of writing since childhood. I became an academic because I could always find something to write about by researching other people's lives, even if I could not come up with a story of my own.

"I find the conditions of human life fascinating and religion in all its permutations—belief, material artifacts, culture—probably the most curious thing about being human. I am grateful that so many people appreciate my written work, which emerges almost completely out of my own interests. I pay close attention to the work of scholars I admire in the fields of American studies, Jewish studies, and women's studies, but my research projects appeal primarily to me. I hope they will please others when they are completed. I enjoy the process.

"When I write, I sit down at the computer and just pour words onto the screen as fast as I think of them. I organize, edit, substantiate, cite, and generally improve the flow as I go along. I do countless revisions, but I like revising. I like figuring out better ways to shape a sentence, paragraph, chapter, or phrase.

"I prefer to write about topics that allow me to explore issues and subtleties in American religious life. I think scholarship is more interesting when it is exploring nuances and seeming contradictions than when it is telling a single narrative that overarches a historical era. Nonetheless, I think narrative structure is crucial in a volume. The reader has to like the book! My challenge is to construct an enjoyable, readable, credible, and intellectually challenging book out of the complexities in the material that I have researched. I find it fun."