|
Showing 1 - 15 of
15 matches in All Departments
Advances in genetics are renewing controversies over inherited
characteristics, and the discourse around science and technological
innovations has taken on racial overtones, such as attributing
inherited physiological traits to certain ethnic groups or using
DNA testing to determine biological links with ethnic ancestry.
This book contributes to the discussion by opening up previously
locked concepts of the relation between the terms color, race, and
"Jews", and by engaging with globalism, multiculturalism,
hybridity, and diaspora. The contributors-leading scholars in
anthropology, sociology, history, literature, and cultural
studies-discuss how it is not merely a question of whether Jews are
acknowledged to be interracial, but how to address academic and
social discourses that continue to place Jews and others in a
race/color category.
Offering a radical critique of contemporary Israeli and diaspora
fiction by major writers of the generation after Amos Oz and Philip
Roth, this book asks searching questions about identity formation
in Jewish spaces in the twenty-first century and posits global,
transnational identities instead of the bipolar Israel/diaspora
model. The chapters put into conversation major authors such as
Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Michael Chabon, and Nathan
Englander with their Israeli counterparts Zeruya Shalev, Eshkol
Nevo, and Etgar Keret and shows that they share common themes and
concerns. Read through a postmodern lens, their preoccupation with
failed marriage and failed ideals brings to the fore the crises of
home, nation, historical destiny, and collective memory in
contemporary secular Jewish culture. At times provocative, at
others iconoclastic, this innovative study must be read by anyone
concerned with Jewish culture and identity today, whether scholars,
students, or the general reader.
Offering a radical critique of contemporary Israeli and diaspora
fiction by major writers of the generation after Amos Oz and Philip
Roth, this book asks searching questions about identity formation
in Jewish spaces in the twenty-first century and posits global,
transnational identities instead of the bipolar Israel/diaspora
model. The chapters put into conversation major authors such as
Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Michael Chabon, and Nathan
Englander with their Israeli counterparts Zeruya Shalev, Eshkol
Nevo, and Etgar Keret and shows that they share common themes and
concerns. Read through a postmodern lens, their preoccupation with
failed marriage and failed ideals brings to the fore the crises of
home, nation, historical destiny, and collective memory in
contemporary secular Jewish culture. At times provocative, at
others iconoclastic, this innovative study must be read by anyone
concerned with Jewish culture and identity today, whether scholars,
students, or the general reader.
A new approach to thinking about the representation of the Other in
Western society, The Jew's Daughter: A Cultural History of a
Conversion Narrative offers an insight into the gendered difference
of the Jew. Focusing on a popular narrative of "The Jew's
Daughter," which has been overlooked in conventional studies of
European anti-Semitism, this innovative study looks at canonical
and neglected texts which have constructed racialized and
sexualized images that persist today in the media and popular
culture. The book goes back before Shylock and Jessica in The
Merchant of Venice and Isaac and Rebecca in Ivanhoe to seek the
answers to why the Jewish father is always wicked and ugly, while
his daughter is invariably desirable and open to conversion. The
story unfolds in fascinating transformations, reflecting changing
ideological and social discourses about gender, sexuality,
religion, and nation that expose shifting perceptions of inclusion
and exclusion of the Other. Unlike previous studies of the theme of
the Jewess in separate literatures, Sicher provides a comparative
perspective on the transnational circulation of texts in the
historical context of the perception of both Jews and women as
marginal or outcasts in society. The book draws on examples from
the arts, history, literature, folklore, and theology to draw a
complex picture of the dynamics of Jewish-Christian relations in
England, France, Germany, and Eastern Europe from 1100 to 2017. In
addition, the responses of Jewish authors illustrate a dialogue
that has not always led to mutual understanding. This
ground-breaking work will provoke questions about the history and
present state of prejudiced attitudes in our society.
Advances in genetics are renewing controversies over inherited
characteristics, and the discourse around science and technological
innovations has taken on racial overtones, such as attributing
inherited physiological traits to certain ethnic groups or using
DNA testing to determine biological links with ethnic ancestry.
This book contributes to the discussion by opening up previously
locked concepts of the relation between the terms color, race, and
"Jews", and by engaging with globalism, multiculturalism,
hybridity, and diaspora. The contributors-leading scholars in
anthropology, sociology, history, literature, and cultural
studies-discuss how it is not merely a question of whether Jews are
acknowledged to be interracial, but how to address academic and
social discourses that continue to place Jews and others in a
race/color category.
Isaak Babel' (1894-1940) is arguably one of the greatest modern
short story writers of the early twentieth century. Yet his life
and work are shrouded in the mystery of who Babel' was - an Odessa
Jew who wrote in Russian, who came from one of the most vibrant
centers of east European Jewish culture, and who all his life loved
Yiddish and the stories of Sholom Aleichem This is the first book
in English to study the intertextuality of Babel''s work. It looks
at Babel''s cultural identity as a case study in the contradictions
and tensions of literary influence, personal loyalties, and
ideological constraint. The complex and often ambivalent relations
between the two cultures inevitably raise controversial issues that
touch on the reception of Babel' and other Jewish intellectuals in
Russian literature, as well as the "Jewishness" of their work.
A new approach to thinking about the representation of the Other in
Western society, The Jew's Daughter: A Cultural History of a
Conversion Narrative offers an insight into the gendered difference
of the Jew. Focusing on a popular narrative of "The Jew's
Daughter," which has been overlooked in conventional studies of
European anti-Semitism, this innovative study looks at canonical
and neglected texts which have constructed racialized and
sexualized images that persist today in the media and popular
culture. The book goes back before Shylock and Jessica in The
Merchant of Venice and Isaac and Rebecca in Ivanhoe to seek the
answers to why the Jewish father is always wicked and ugly, while
his daughter is invariably desirable and open to conversion. The
story unfolds in fascinating transformations, reflecting changing
ideological and social discourses about gender, sexuality,
religion, and nation that expose shifting perceptions of inclusion
and exclusion of the Other. Unlike previous studies of the theme of
the Jewess in separate literatures, Sicher provides a comparative
perspective on the transnational circulation of texts in the
historical context of the perception of both Jews and women as
marginal or outcasts in society. The book draws on examples from
the arts, history, literature, folklore, and theology to draw a
complex picture of the dynamics of Jewish-Christian relations in
England, France, Germany, and Eastern Europe from 1100 to 2017. In
addition, the responses of Jewish authors illustrate a dialogue
that has not always led to mutual understanding. This
ground-breaking work will provoke questions about the history and
present state of prejudiced attitudes in our society.
Holocaust literature is recognized as a major postwar literary
genre, but there is little consensus as to its generic definition.
As an addition to the Genres in Context series, The Holocaust Novel
provides the first comprehensive generic study of Holocaust
literature. This student-friendly volume answers a dire need for
readers to understand a genre in which boundaries are often blurred
between history fiction, autobiography and memoir. The Holocaust
Novel offers a student guide to holocaust literature, along with an
annotated bibliography, chronology and further reading list. Major
texts discussed include such widely taught works as Night Maus, The
Shawl, Schindler's List, Sophie's Choice, White Noise and Time's
Arrow.
From the early Soviet period, the impassioned short fiction of the
great Russian-Jewish writer
One of the most powerful short-story writers of the twentieth
century, Isaac Babel expressed his sense of inner conflict through
disturbing tales that explored the contradictions of Russian
society. Whether reflecting on anti-Semitism in stories such as
?Story of My Dovecote? and ?First Love, ? or depicting Jewish
gangsters in his native Odessa, Babel's eye for the comical laid
bare the ironies of history. His masterpiece, ?Red Cavalry, ? set
in the Soviet-Polish war, is one of the classics of modern fiction.
By turns flamboyant and restrained, this collection of Babel's
best-known stories vividly expresses the horrors of his age.
?Amazing not only as literature but as biography.? ?Richard
Bernstein, "The New York Times"
?Marvelously subtle, tragic, and often comic.? ?James Wood, "The
New Republic"
In the Western literary tradition, the "jew" has long been a figure
of ethnic exclusion and social isolation-the wanderer, the
scapegoat, the alien. But it is no longer clear where a perennial
outsider belongs. This provocative study of contemporary British
writing points to the figure of the "jew" as the litmus test of
multicultural society. Efraim Sicher and Linda Weinhouse examine
the "jew" as a cultural construction distinct from the "Jewishness"
of literary characters in novels by, among others, Salman Rushdie,
Anita Desai, Doris Lessing, Monica Ali, Caryl Philips, and Zadie
Smith, as well as contemporary art and film. Here the image of the
"jew" emerges in all its ambivalence, from postcolonial migrant and
modern everyman to more traditional representations of the
conspirator and malefactor. The multicultural discourses of ethnic
and racial hybridity reflect dissolution of national and personal
identities, yet the search for transnational, cultural forms
conceals both the acceptance of marginal South Asian, Caribbean,
and Jewish voices as well as the danger of resurgent antisemitic
tropes. Innovative in its contextualization of the "jew" in the
multiculturalism debate in contemporary Britain, Under Postcolonial
Eyes: Figuring the "jew" in Contemporary British Writing analyzes
the narrative of identities in a globalized culture and offers new
interpretations of postmodern classics.
This work is an innovative and controversial study of how four
famous Jews writing in Russian in the early Soviet period attempted
to resolve the conflict between their cultural identity and their
place in Revolutionary Russia. Babel, Mandelstam, Pasternak and
Ehrenburg struggled in very different ways to form creative selves
out of the contradictions of origins, outlook, and social or
ideological pressures. Efraim Sicher also explores the broader
context of the literature and art of the Jewish avant-garde in the
years immediately preceding and following the Russian Revolution.
By comparing literary texts and the visual arts the author reveals
unexpected correspondences in the response to political and
cultural change. This study contributes to our knowledge of an
important aspect of modern Russian writing and will be of interest
to both Jewish scholars and those concerned with Slavonic studies.
This study is an innovative and controversial study of how the best-known Jews writing in Russian in early Soviet period attempted to resolve the conflict between their cultural identity and their place in Revolutionary Russia. Babel, Mandelstam, Pasternak and Ehrenburg struggled to form creative selves out of the contradictions of origins, outlook and social or ideological pressures. Comparison of literary texts and the visual arts reveals unexpected correspondences in the response to political and cultural change. Sicher provides a fascinating view of intercultural and intertextual connections and contrasts.
The first comprehensive study of Holocaust literature as a major
postwar literary genre, The Holocaust Novel provides an ideal
student guide to the powerful and moving works written in response
to this historical tragedy. This student-friendly volume answers a
dire need for readers to understand a genre in which boundaries and
often blurred between history, fiction, autobiography, and memoir.
Other essential features for students here include an annotated
bibliography, chronology, and further reading list. Major texts
discussed include such widely taught works as Night, Maus, The
Shawl, Schindler's List, Sophie's Choice, White Noise, and Time's
Arrow.
|
|