Classification for Networks of Care
“What sort of rabbinic knowledge about families emerges from these texts? What science of the family is found there? The short answer is that the rabbinic notion of family is far from straightforward. Let me propose, with these passages from Bekhorot in mind, that Rafe’s arguments apply not only to reproductive models but to relational models as well. Rafe’s book invites us to revisit what it meant in the rabbinic world to take care of another being, to rely on and be relied upon, and to be enmeshed with another being physically and psychically.”
Rabbinic World-Making and Imagining Multiplicity
“In When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven, Neis uncovers a world of reproductive uncertainty, making a convincing case for taking the rabbis’ scenarios and debates at face value – as constitutive of ancient world-making.”
The Method-Image
“Critical to this argument, and worthy of further reflection, is Rafael’s deployment of their own artistic practice to communicate their book’s ideas and to produce a meta-argument about history and method that develops alongside the text, and does work that words alone could never do.”
Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash: A short response to Rafael Rachel Neis, When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven
“What does a human look like? What does a raven look like? What happens when you look at them for long enough to see something like yourself? And then you look even longer? –and there is something about being asked to attend to these things that gets at the heart of the matter.”
The Theory of the Raven
“The book, in re-centering this vibrancy, enacts a refusal of closure by demanding that we remain open to the persistence of heteronormative and androcentric patriarchy alongside queerness, transness, and animality.”
Author Response | Neis, When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven
“I view my book not only as a celebration of resemblance and its nonsensical relations, but also an interruption of an exceptionalized and recurring image: that of God. The play of resemblances that found themselves in a divine origin is a patently human vanity project.”