Examples Of Auto-Ethnography

My auto-ethnography encompassed a three-day span from last Thursday afternoon to Saturday afternoon. During this time, I visited Boston to participate in the celebration of a rabbi’s installation as the first woman to lead New England’s largest Reform Jewish Synagogue (Temple Israel of Boston). As points-of-reference: this particular rabbi was also the person who oversaw my conversation to Judaism and was particular influential during some of my tumultuous life events. Additionally, I have remained close to both the Temple as an institution and its congregation. (For example, I will be traveling up there again later on in the year to do some teaching.) So I traveled to Boston - the same city/region where I received my undergrad and Masters degrees – with both literal and figurative baggage. …show more content…
Yet instead of immediately meeting up with my hosts I felt the need to spend some time alone with the city, visit familiar sites, retrace old steps. After literally bumping into two very surprised friends (because Boston is where such serendipity happens) I journeyed out to my undergrad school, University of Massachusetts-Boston. It was nine o’clock by the time I wandered down its quiet Harborwalk and found a bench to mediate with the bay’s moonlit waters by. (UMass Boston is a seaside campus). I thought upon this town’s sense of intimacy; of the sadness of having left it, of the desires that kept me away and made me long to return. A lone male-bodied jogger in gray sweats and a hoodie ran by, making me think how we, academics and others, all occupy the lonely space of long-distance runners at some