In 2004 the one-hundredth anniversary of Theodor Herzl's death was commemorated throughout the world. The myth of Herzl, as it has developed over the last century, has perhaps become more important than the historical figure. This volume contains revised and expanded essays, which were originally delivered as lectures at international Herzl centennial conferences in Antwerp, London, and Jerusalem. Topics treated include the Herzl myth, Herzl's nationalism and Zionism, his self-understanding and image, his authorship of comedies and philosophical tales, Herzl and Africa, as well as his reception in Israeli and other literature. Zweig films are also considered within this same context.

The starting point for this compilation is the wish to rethink the concept of antisemitism, race and gender in light of Sartre's pioneering Reflexions sur la Question Juive seventy years after its publication. The book gathers texts by prestigious scholars from different disciplines in the Humanities and the Social Sciences, with the objective or revisiting this work locating it within the setting of two other pioneering - and we argue, related - publications, namely Simone De Beauvoir's Le deuxieme sexe of 1949 and Franz Fanon's Peau noire et masques blancs of 1952. This particular and original standpoint sheds new light on the different meanings and political functions of the concept of antisemitism in a political and historical context marked by the post-modern concepts of multi-ethnicity and multiculturalism.

Kafka's work has been attributed a universal significance and is often regarded as the ultimate witness of the human condition in the twentieth century. Yet his work is also considered paradigmatic for the expression of the singular that cannot be subsumed under any generalization. This paradox engenders questions not only concerning the meaning of the universal as it manifests itself in (and is transformed by) Kafka's writings but also about the expression of the singular in literary fiction as it challenges the opposition between the universal and the singular. The contributions in this volume approach these questions from a variety of perspectives. They are structured according to the following issues: ambiguity as a tool of deconstructing the pre-established philosophical meanings of the universal; the concept of the law as a major symbol for the universal meaning of Kafka's writings; the presence of animals in Kafka's texts; the modernist mode of writing as challenge of philosophical concepts of the universal; and the meaning and relevance of the universal in contemporary Kafka reception. This volume examines central aspects of the interplay between philosophy and literature.

In the past decades the "German-Jewish phenomenon" (Derrida) has increasingly attracted the attention of scholars from various fields: Jewish studies, intellectual history, philosophy, literary and cultural studies, critical theory. In all its complex dimensions, the post-enlightenment German-Jewish experience is overwhelmingly regarded as the most quintessential and charged meeting of Jews with the project of modernity. Perhaps for this reason, from the eighteenth century through to our own time it has been the object of intense reflection, of clashing interpretations and appropriations. In both micro and macro case-studies, this volume engages the multiple perspectives as advocated by manifold interested actors, and analyzes their uses, biases and ideological functions over time in different cultural, disciplinary and national contexts. This volume includes both historical treatments of differing German-Jewish understandings of their experience - their relations to their Judaism, general culture and to other Jews - and contemporary reflections and competing interpretations as to how to understand the overall experience of German Jewry.

An advanced introduction to Benjamin's work and its actualization for our own times. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) has emerged as one of the leading cultural critics of the twentieth century. His work encompasses aesthetics, metaphysical language and narrative theories, German literary history, philosophies of history, the intersection of Marxism and Messianic thought, urban topography, and the development of photography and film. Benjamin defined the task of the critic as one that blasts endangered moments of the past out of the continuum of history so that they attain new significance. This volume of new essays employs this principle of actualization as its methodological program in offering a new advanced introduction to Benjamin's own work. The essays analyze Benjamin's central texts, themes, terminologies, and genres in their original contexts while simultaneously situating them in new parameters, such as contemporary media, memory culture, constructions of gender, postcoloniality, and theories of urban topographies. The Companion brings together an international group of established and emerging scholars to explicate Benjamin's actuality from a multidisciplinary perspective. Designed for audiences interested in literary criticism, cultural studies, and neighboring disciplines, the volume serves as a stimulus for new debates about Benjamin's intellectual legacy today. Contributors: Wolfgang Bock, Willi Bolle, Dianne Chisholm, Adrian Daub, Dominik Finkelde, Eric Jarosinski, Lutz Koepnick, Vivian Liska, Karl Ivan Solibakke, Marc de Wilde, Bernd Witte Rolf J. Goebel is Distinguished Professor of German and Chair of the Department of WorldLanguages and Cultures at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Kafka's work has been attributed a universal significance and is often regarded as the ultimate witness of the human condition in the twentieth century. Yet his work is also considered paradigmatic for the expression of the singular that cannot be subsumed under any generalization. This paradox engenders questions not only concerning the meaning of the universal as it manifests itself in (and is transformed by) Kafka's writings but also about the expression of the singular in literary fiction as it challenges the opposition between the universal and the singular. The contributions in this volume approach these questions from a variety of perspectives. They are structured according to the following issues: ambiguity as a tool of deconstructing the pre-established philosophical meanings of the universal; the concept of the law as a major symbol for the universal meaning of Kafka's writings; the presence of animals in Kafka's texts; the modernist mode of writing as challenge of philosophical concepts of the universal; and the meaning and relevance of the universal in contemporary Kafka reception. This volume examines central aspects of the interplay between philosophy and literature.

In the past decades the "German-Jewish phenomenon" (Derrida) has increasingly attracted the attention of scholars from various fields: Jewish studies, intellectual history, philosophy, literary and cultural studies, critical theory. In all its complex dimensions, the post-enlightenment German-Jewish experience is overwhelmingly regarded as the most quintessential and charged meeting of Jews with the project of modernity. Perhaps for this reason, from the eighteenth century through to our own time it has been the object of intense reflection, of clashing interpretations and appropriations. In both micro and macro case-studies, this volume engages the multiple perspectives as advocated by manifold interested actors, and analyzes their uses, biases and ideological functions over time in different cultural, disciplinary and national contexts. This volume includes both historical treatments of differing German-Jewish understandings of their experience - their relations to their Judaism, general culture and to other Jews - and contemporary reflections and competing interpretations as to how to understand the overall experience of German Jewry.

An advanced introduction to Benjamin's work and its actualization for our own times. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) has emerged as one of the leading cultural critics of the twentieth century. His work encompasses aesthetics, metaphysical language and narrative theories, German literary history, philosophies of history, the intersection of Marxism and Messianic thought, urban topography, and the development of photography and film. Benjamin defined the task of the critic as one that blasts endangered moments of the past out of the continuum of history so that they attain new significance. This volume of new essays employs this principle of actualization as its methodological program in offering a new advanced introduction to Benjamin's own work. The essays analyze Benjamin's central texts, themes, terminologies, and genres in their original contexts while simultaneously situating them in new parameters, such as contemporary media, memory culture, constructions of gender, postcoloniality, and theories of urban topographies. The Companion brings together an international group of established and emerging scholars to explicate Benjamin's actuality from a multidisciplinary perspective. Designed for audiences interested in literary criticism, cultural studies, and neighboring disciplines, the volume serves as a stimulus for new debates about Benjamin's intellectual legacy today. Contributors: Wolfgang Bock, Willi Bolle, Dianne Chisholm, Adrian Daub, Dominik Finkelde, Eric Jarosinski, Lutz Koepnick, Vivian Liska, Karl Ivan Solibakke, Marc de Wilde, Bernd Witte Rolf J. Goebel is Distinguished Professor of German and Chair of the Department of WorldLanguages and Cultures at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

In German-Jewish Thought and Its Afterlife, Vivian Liska innovatively focuses on the changing form, fate and function of messianism, law, exile, election, remembrance, and the transmission of tradition itself in three different temporal and intellectual frameworks: German-Jewish modernism, postmodernism, and the current period. Highlighting these elements of the Jewish tradition in the works of Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, Hannah Arendt, and Paul Celan, Liska reflects on dialogues and conversations between them and on the reception of their work. She shows how this Jewish dimension of their writings is transformed, but remains significant in the theories of Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida and how it is appropriated, dismissed or denied by some of the most acclaimed thinkers at the turn of the twenty-first century such as Giorgio Agamben, Slavoj Zizek, and Alain Badiou.

In German-Jewish Thought and Its Afterlife, Vivian Liska innovatively focuses on the changing form, fate and function of messianism, law, exile, election, remembrance, and the transmission of tradition itself in three different temporal and intellectual frameworks: German-Jewish modernism, postmodernism, and the current period. Highlighting these elements of the Jewish tradition in the works of Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem, Hannah Arendt, and Paul Celan, Liska reflects on dialogues and conversations between them and on the reception of their work. She shows how this Jewish dimension of their writings is transformed, but remains significant in the theories of Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida and how it is appropriated, dismissed or denied by some of the most acclaimed thinkers at the turn of the twenty-first century such as Giorgio Agamben, Slavoj Žižek, and Alain Badiou.

Taking as its starting point Franz Kafka's complex relationship to Jews and to communities in general, When Kafka Says We explores the ambivalent responses of major German-Jewish writers to self-enclosed social, religious, ethnic, and ideological groups. Vivian Liska shows that, for Kafka and others, this ambivalence inspired innovative modes of writing which, while unmasking the oppressive cohesion of communal groupings, also configured original and uncommon communities. Interlinked close readings of works by German-Jewish writers such as Kafka, Else Lasker-Schuler, Nelly Sachs, Paul Celan, Ilse Aichinger, and Robert Schindel illuminate the ways in which literature can subvert, extend, or reconfigure established visions of communities. Liska's rich and astute analysis uncovers provocative attitudes and insights on a subject of continuing controversy."