The Impossible Jew : Identity and the Reconstruction of Jewish American Literary History / Benjamin Schreier.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schreier, Benjamin, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Foer, Jonathan Safran, 1977---Criticism and interpretation.

Foer, Jonathan Safran.

Roth, Philip--Criticism and interpretation.

Roth, Philip.

Cahan, Abraham, 1860-1951--Criticism and interpretation.

Cahan, Abraham.

Jews--Identity.

Jews.

Jewish literature--United States--History and criticism.

Jewish literature.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (281 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : New York University Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

He destroys in order to create. In a sweeping critique of the field, Benjamin Schreier resituates Jewish Studies in order to make room for a critical study of identity and identification. Displacing the assumption that Jewish Studies is necessarily the study of Jews, this book aims to break down the walls of the academic ghetto in which the study of Jewish American literature often seems to be contained: alienated from fields like comparative ethnicity studies, American studies, and multicultural studies; suffering from the unwillingness of Jewish Studies to accept critical literary studies as a legitimate part of its project; and so often refusing itself to engage in self-critique. The Impossible Jew interrogates how the concept of identity is critically put to work by identity-based literary study. Through readings of key authors from across the canon of Jewish American literature and culture—including Abraham Cahan, the New York Intellectuals, Philip Roth, and Jonathan Safran Foer—Benjamin Schreier shows how texts resist the historicist expectation that self-evident Jewish populations are represented in and recoverable from them. Through ornate, scabrous, funny polemics, Schreier draws the lines of relation between Jewish American literary study and American studies, multiethnic studies, critical theory, and Jewish Studies formations. He maintains that a Jewish Studies beyond ethnicity is essential for a viable future of Jewish literary study.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Toward a Critical Semitism

2. Against the Dialectic of Nation

3. The Negative Desire of Jewish Representation; or, Why Were the New York Intellectuals Jewish?

4. Why Jews Aren’t Normal

5. 9/11’s Stealthy Jews

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jul 2020)

ISBN:

9781479858026

1479858021

9781479888436

1479888435

OCLC:

910448131