Write like a man : Jewish masculinity and the New York intellectuals / Ronnie A. Grinberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grinberg, Ronnie A., author.

Contributor:

Osborne, Katie, bookjacket designer.

Krimstein, Ken, bookjacket illustrator.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Masculinity--Religious aspects--Judaism.

Masculinity.

Machismo in literature.

Jewish critics--New York (State)--New York.

Jewish critics.

Jewish men--New York (State)--New York.

Jewish men.

Jews--United States--Attitudes.

Jews.

Jews--United States--Intellectual life.

New York (N.Y.)--Intellectual life.

New York (N.Y.).

Jews--New York (State)--New York--Intellectual life.

Intellectual life--History--20th century.

Intellectual life.

Critics--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.

Critics.

Authors--History--20th century.

Authors.

Physical Description:

xvi, 367 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2024]

Summary:

"In the years following World War II, the New York intellectuals became some of the most renowned critics and writers in the country. Although mostly male and Jewish, this prominent group also included women and non-Jews. Yet all of its members embraced a secular Jewish machismo that became a defining characteristic of the contemporary experience. Write like a Man examines how the New York intellectuals shared a uniquely American conception of Jewish masculinity that prized verbal confrontation, polemical aggression, and an unflinching style of argumentation. Ronnie Grinberg paints illuminating portraits of figures such as Norman Mailer, Hannah Arendt, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Mary McCarthy, Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, and Irving Howe. She describes how their construction of Jewish masculinity helped to propel the American Jew from outsider to insider even as they clashed over its meaning in a deeply anxious project of self-definition. Along the way, Grinberg sheds light on their fraught encounters with the most contentious issues and ideas of the day, from student radicalism and the civil rights movement to feminism, Freudianism, and neoconservatism."-- Amazon.com.

Contents:

Introduction

ch. 1. My weapon is my pen : constructing secular Jewish masculinity

ch. 2. "Crazy" and "genteel" : Di and Li Trilling and secular Jewish masculinity

ch. 3. Jewish cold warriors and "mature" masculinity

ch. 4. World of our fathers, world of our sons : Irving Howe and Jewish masculinity on the left

ch. 5. "Lady" critics : women New York intellectuals and feminism

ch. 6. Midge Decter : the "first lady of neoconservatism"

ch. 7. "S'Sissy,' the most dreaded epithet of an American boyhood" : Norman Podhoretz and Jewish masculinity on the right

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 279-352) and index.

ISBN:

9780691193090

0691193096

OCLC:

1378710915