Middlebrow Literature and the Making of German-Jewish Identity

Middlebrow Literature and the Making of German-Jewish Identity

Author: Jonathan M. Hess

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2010-03-12

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0804774234

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For generations of German-speaking Jews, the works of Goethe and Schiller epitomized the world of European high culture, a realm that Jews actively participated in as both readers and consumers. Yet from the 1830s on, Jews writing in German also produced a vast corpus of popular fiction that was explicitly Jewish in content, audience, and function. Middlebrow Literature and the Making of German-Jewish Identity offers the first comprehensive investigation in English of this literature, which sought to navigate between tradition and modernity, between Jewish history and the German present, and between the fading walls of the ghetto and the promise of a new identity as members of a German bourgeoisie. This study examines the ways in which popular fiction assumed an unprecedented role in shaping Jewish identity during this period. It locates in nineteenth-century Germany a defining moment of the modern Jewish experience and the beginnings of a tradition of Jewish belles lettres that is in many ways still with us today.


Book Synopsis Middlebrow Literature and the Making of German-Jewish Identity by : Jonathan M. Hess

Download or read book Middlebrow Literature and the Making of German-Jewish Identity written by Jonathan M. Hess and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-12 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For generations of German-speaking Jews, the works of Goethe and Schiller epitomized the world of European high culture, a realm that Jews actively participated in as both readers and consumers. Yet from the 1830s on, Jews writing in German also produced a vast corpus of popular fiction that was explicitly Jewish in content, audience, and function. Middlebrow Literature and the Making of German-Jewish Identity offers the first comprehensive investigation in English of this literature, which sought to navigate between tradition and modernity, between Jewish history and the German present, and between the fading walls of the ghetto and the promise of a new identity as members of a German bourgeoisie. This study examines the ways in which popular fiction assumed an unprecedented role in shaping Jewish identity during this period. It locates in nineteenth-century Germany a defining moment of the modern Jewish experience and the beginnings of a tradition of Jewish belles lettres that is in many ways still with us today.

Making German Jewish Literature Anew

Making German Jewish Literature Anew

Author: Katja Garloff

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2022-12-06

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 0253063744

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In Making German Jewish Literature Anew, Katja Garloff traces the emergence of a new Jewish literature in Germany and Austria from 1990 to the present. The rise of new generations of authors who identify as both German and Jewish, and who often sustain additional affiliations with places such as France, Russia, or Israel, affords a unique opportunity to analyze the foundational moments of diasporic literature. Making German Jewish Literature Anew is structured around a series of founding gestures: performing authorship, remaking memory, and claiming places. Garloff contends that these founding gestures are literary strategies that reestablish the very possibility of a German Jewish literature several decades after the Holocaust. Making German Jewish Literature Anew offers fresh interpretations of second-generation authors such as Maxim Biller, Doron Rabinovici, and Barbara Honigmann as well as of third-generation authors, many of whom come from Eastern European and/or mixed-religion backgrounds. These more recent writers include Benjamin Stein, Lena Gorelik, and Katja Petrowskaja. Throughout the book, Garloff asks what exactly marks a given text as Jewish—the author's identity, intended audience, thematic concerns, or stylistic choices—and reflects on existing definitions of Jewish literature.


Book Synopsis Making German Jewish Literature Anew by : Katja Garloff

Download or read book Making German Jewish Literature Anew written by Katja Garloff and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2022-12-06 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Making German Jewish Literature Anew, Katja Garloff traces the emergence of a new Jewish literature in Germany and Austria from 1990 to the present. The rise of new generations of authors who identify as both German and Jewish, and who often sustain additional affiliations with places such as France, Russia, or Israel, affords a unique opportunity to analyze the foundational moments of diasporic literature. Making German Jewish Literature Anew is structured around a series of founding gestures: performing authorship, remaking memory, and claiming places. Garloff contends that these founding gestures are literary strategies that reestablish the very possibility of a German Jewish literature several decades after the Holocaust. Making German Jewish Literature Anew offers fresh interpretations of second-generation authors such as Maxim Biller, Doron Rabinovici, and Barbara Honigmann as well as of third-generation authors, many of whom come from Eastern European and/or mixed-religion backgrounds. These more recent writers include Benjamin Stein, Lena Gorelik, and Katja Petrowskaja. Throughout the book, Garloff asks what exactly marks a given text as Jewish—the author's identity, intended audience, thematic concerns, or stylistic choices—and reflects on existing definitions of Jewish literature.

Bambi's Jewish Roots and Other Essays on German-Jewish Culture

Bambi's Jewish Roots and Other Essays on German-Jewish Culture

Author: Paul Reitter

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2015-06-18

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1441198067

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Paul Reitter has won acclaim as both a scholar and a public critic for his writing on German Jewish culture in the twentieth century. Bambi's Jewish Roots brings together the best of Reitter's essayistic work, exploring the lives of well-known figures and revealing surprising new perspectives. These include how Felix Salten's Zionist commitments manifest themselves in his most famous work, the novel Bambi; what Gershom Scholem's diaries tell us about his development as a thinker and person; why German-Jewish writers hated Stefan Zweig so passionately; where myth-busting books about Franz Kafka have indulged in myth-building; how Freud's Moses and Monotheism offers a theory of Jewish self-hatred more than an explanation of anti-Semitism; and why Heinrich Heine felt aburning need to distance himself from his fellow liberal Jewish critic Ludwig Börne. The works collected here, many of which were originally published in forums such as the New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, Harper's Magazine, and the Jewish Review of Books, have earned Reitter his reputation as a witty, erudite, and deeply illuminating critic.


Book Synopsis Bambi's Jewish Roots and Other Essays on German-Jewish Culture by : Paul Reitter

Download or read book Bambi's Jewish Roots and Other Essays on German-Jewish Culture written by Paul Reitter and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-06-18 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Reitter has won acclaim as both a scholar and a public critic for his writing on German Jewish culture in the twentieth century. Bambi's Jewish Roots brings together the best of Reitter's essayistic work, exploring the lives of well-known figures and revealing surprising new perspectives. These include how Felix Salten's Zionist commitments manifest themselves in his most famous work, the novel Bambi; what Gershom Scholem's diaries tell us about his development as a thinker and person; why German-Jewish writers hated Stefan Zweig so passionately; where myth-busting books about Franz Kafka have indulged in myth-building; how Freud's Moses and Monotheism offers a theory of Jewish self-hatred more than an explanation of anti-Semitism; and why Heinrich Heine felt aburning need to distance himself from his fellow liberal Jewish critic Ludwig Börne. The works collected here, many of which were originally published in forums such as the New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, Harper's Magazine, and the Jewish Review of Books, have earned Reitter his reputation as a witty, erudite, and deeply illuminating critic.

Inventing the Israelite

Inventing the Israelite

Author: Maurice Samuels

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2009-12-07

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0804773424

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In this book, Maurice Samuels brings to light little known works of literature produced from 1830 to 1870 by the first generation of Jews born as French citizens. These writers, Samuels asserts, used fiction as a laboratory to experiment with new forms of Jewish identity relevant to the modern world. In their stories and novels, they responded to the stereotypical depictions of Jews in French culture while creatively adapting the forms and genres of the French literary tradition. They also offered innovative solutions to the central dilemmas of Jewish modernity in the French context—including how to reconcile their identities as Jews with the universalizing demands of the French revolutionary tradition. While their solutions ranged from complete assimilation to a modern brand of orthodoxy, these writers collectively illustrate the creativity of a community in the face of unprecedented upheaval.


Book Synopsis Inventing the Israelite by : Maurice Samuels

Download or read book Inventing the Israelite written by Maurice Samuels and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2009-12-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Maurice Samuels brings to light little known works of literature produced from 1830 to 1870 by the first generation of Jews born as French citizens. These writers, Samuels asserts, used fiction as a laboratory to experiment with new forms of Jewish identity relevant to the modern world. In their stories and novels, they responded to the stereotypical depictions of Jews in French culture while creatively adapting the forms and genres of the French literary tradition. They also offered innovative solutions to the central dilemmas of Jewish modernity in the French context—including how to reconcile their identities as Jews with the universalizing demands of the French revolutionary tradition. While their solutions ranged from complete assimilation to a modern brand of orthodoxy, these writers collectively illustrate the creativity of a community in the face of unprecedented upheaval.

Rebirth of a Culture

Rebirth of a Culture

Author: Hillary Hope Herzog

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2008-08-01

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 085745028X

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After 1945, Jewish writing in German was almost unimaginable—and then only in reference to the Shoah. Only in the 1980s, after a period of mourning, silence, and processing of the trauma, did a new Jewish literature evolve in Germany and Austria. This volume focuses on the re-emergence of a lively Jewish cultural scene in the German-speaking countries and the various cultural forms of expression that have developed around it. Topics include current debates such as the emergence of a post-Waldheim Jewish discourse in Austria and Jewish responses to German unification and the Gulf wars. Other significant themes addressed are the memorialization of the Holocaust in Berlin and Vienna, the uses of Kafka in contemporary German literature, and the German and American-Jewish dialogue as representative of both the history of exile and the globalization of postmodern civilization. The volume is enhanced by contributions from some of the most significant representatives of German-Jewish writing today such as Esther Dischereit, Barbara Honigmann, Jeanette Lander, and Doron Rabinovici. The result is a lively dialogue between European and North American scholars and writers that captures the complexity and dynamism of Jewish culture in Germany and Austria at the turn of the twenty-first century.


Book Synopsis Rebirth of a Culture by : Hillary Hope Herzog

Download or read book Rebirth of a Culture written by Hillary Hope Herzog and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2008-08-01 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After 1945, Jewish writing in German was almost unimaginable—and then only in reference to the Shoah. Only in the 1980s, after a period of mourning, silence, and processing of the trauma, did a new Jewish literature evolve in Germany and Austria. This volume focuses on the re-emergence of a lively Jewish cultural scene in the German-speaking countries and the various cultural forms of expression that have developed around it. Topics include current debates such as the emergence of a post-Waldheim Jewish discourse in Austria and Jewish responses to German unification and the Gulf wars. Other significant themes addressed are the memorialization of the Holocaust in Berlin and Vienna, the uses of Kafka in contemporary German literature, and the German and American-Jewish dialogue as representative of both the history of exile and the globalization of postmodern civilization. The volume is enhanced by contributions from some of the most significant representatives of German-Jewish writing today such as Esther Dischereit, Barbara Honigmann, Jeanette Lander, and Doron Rabinovici. The result is a lively dialogue between European and North American scholars and writers that captures the complexity and dynamism of Jewish culture in Germany and Austria at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Gender, Orientalism and the Jewish Nation

Gender, Orientalism and the Jewish Nation

Author: Lynne M. Swarts

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2020-01-23

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1501336150

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Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874-1925) was one of the most important Jewish artists of modern times. As a successful illustrator, photographer, painter and printer, he became the first major Zionist artist. Surprisingly there has been little in-depth scholarly research and analysis of Lilien's work available in English, making this book an important contribution to historical and art-historical scholarship. Concentrating mainly on his illustrations for journals and books, Lynne Swarts acknowledges the importance of Lilien's groundbreaking male iconography in Zionist art, but is the first to examine Lilien's complex and nuanced depiction of women, which comprised a major dimension of his work. Lilien's female images offer a compelling glimpse of an alternate, independent and often sexually liberated modern Jewish woman, a portrayal that often eluded the Zionist imagination. Using an interdisciplinary approach to integrate intellectual and cultural history with issues of gender, Jewish history and visual culture, Swarts also explores the important fin de siècle tensions between European and Oriental expressions of Jewish femininity. The work demonstrates that Lilien was not a minor figure in the European art scene, but a major figure whose work needs re-reading in light of his cosmopolitan and national artistic genius.


Book Synopsis Gender, Orientalism and the Jewish Nation by : Lynne M. Swarts

Download or read book Gender, Orientalism and the Jewish Nation written by Lynne M. Swarts and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-01-23 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874-1925) was one of the most important Jewish artists of modern times. As a successful illustrator, photographer, painter and printer, he became the first major Zionist artist. Surprisingly there has been little in-depth scholarly research and analysis of Lilien's work available in English, making this book an important contribution to historical and art-historical scholarship. Concentrating mainly on his illustrations for journals and books, Lynne Swarts acknowledges the importance of Lilien's groundbreaking male iconography in Zionist art, but is the first to examine Lilien's complex and nuanced depiction of women, which comprised a major dimension of his work. Lilien's female images offer a compelling glimpse of an alternate, independent and often sexually liberated modern Jewish woman, a portrayal that often eluded the Zionist imagination. Using an interdisciplinary approach to integrate intellectual and cultural history with issues of gender, Jewish history and visual culture, Swarts also explores the important fin de siècle tensions between European and Oriental expressions of Jewish femininity. The work demonstrates that Lilien was not a minor figure in the European art scene, but a major figure whose work needs re-reading in light of his cosmopolitan and national artistic genius.

Nexus 5

Nexus 5

Author: Ruth von Bernuth

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2021-02-15

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1640140794

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Special volume treating exemplars of the vast number of texts arising from historic and imaginary encounters between Jews and non-Jewish Germans, from the early modern period to the present.


Book Synopsis Nexus 5 by : Ruth von Bernuth

Download or read book Nexus 5 written by Ruth von Bernuth and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2021-02-15 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Special volume treating exemplars of the vast number of texts arising from historic and imaginary encounters between Jews and non-Jewish Germans, from the early modern period to the present.

Deborah and Her Sisters

Deborah and Her Sisters

Author: Jonathan M. Hess

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0812249585

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Before Fiddler on the Roof, there was Deborah, a blockbuster melodrama about a Jewish woman forsaken by her non-Jewish lover. Deborah and Her Sisters offers the first comprehensive history of this transnational phenomenon, focusing on its ability to bring Jews and non-Jews together during a period of increasing antisemitism.


Book Synopsis Deborah and Her Sisters by : Jonathan M. Hess

Download or read book Deborah and Her Sisters written by Jonathan M. Hess and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before Fiddler on the Roof, there was Deborah, a blockbuster melodrama about a Jewish woman forsaken by her non-Jewish lover. Deborah and Her Sisters offers the first comprehensive history of this transnational phenomenon, focusing on its ability to bring Jews and non-Jews together during a period of increasing antisemitism.

It Could Lead to Dancing

It Could Lead to Dancing

Author: Sonia Gollance

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2021-05-25

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 1503627802

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Dances and balls appear throughout world literature as venues for young people to meet, flirt, and form relationships, as any reader of Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, or Romeo and Juliet can attest. The popularity of social dance transcends class, gender, ethnic, and national boundaries. In the context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Jewish culture, dance offers crucial insights into debates about emancipation and acculturation. While traditional Jewish law prohibits men and women from dancing together, Jewish mixed-sex dancing was understood as the very sign of modernity––and the ultimate boundary transgression. Writers of modern Jewish literature deployed dance scenes as a charged and complex arena for understanding the limits of acculturation, the dangers of ethnic mixing, and the implications of shifting gender norms and marriage patterns, while simultaneously entertaining their readers. In this pioneering study, Sonia Gollance examines the specific literary qualities of dance scenes, while also paying close attention to the broader social implications of Jewish engagement with dance. Combining cultural history with literary analysis and drawing connections to contemporary representations of Jewish social dance, Gollance illustrates how mixed-sex dancing functions as a flexible metaphor for the concerns of Jewish communities in the face of cultural transitions.


Book Synopsis It Could Lead to Dancing by : Sonia Gollance

Download or read book It Could Lead to Dancing written by Sonia Gollance and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dances and balls appear throughout world literature as venues for young people to meet, flirt, and form relationships, as any reader of Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, or Romeo and Juliet can attest. The popularity of social dance transcends class, gender, ethnic, and national boundaries. In the context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Jewish culture, dance offers crucial insights into debates about emancipation and acculturation. While traditional Jewish law prohibits men and women from dancing together, Jewish mixed-sex dancing was understood as the very sign of modernity––and the ultimate boundary transgression. Writers of modern Jewish literature deployed dance scenes as a charged and complex arena for understanding the limits of acculturation, the dangers of ethnic mixing, and the implications of shifting gender norms and marriage patterns, while simultaneously entertaining their readers. In this pioneering study, Sonia Gollance examines the specific literary qualities of dance scenes, while also paying close attention to the broader social implications of Jewish engagement with dance. Combining cultural history with literary analysis and drawing connections to contemporary representations of Jewish social dance, Gollance illustrates how mixed-sex dancing functions as a flexible metaphor for the concerns of Jewish communities in the face of cultural transitions.

German–Jewish Studies

German–Jewish Studies

Author: Kerry Wallach

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2022-10-14

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 1800736789

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As a field, German-Jewish Studies emphasizes the dangers of nationalism, monoculturalism, and ethnocentrism, while making room for multilingual and transnational perspectives with questions surrounding migration, refugees, exile, and precarity. Focussing on the relevance and utility of the field for the twenty-first century, German-Jewish Studies explores why studying and applying German-Jewish history and culture must evolve and be given further attention today. The volume brings together an interdisciplinary range of scholars to reconsider the history of antisemitism—as well as intersections of antisemitism with racism and colonialism—and how connections to German Jews shed light on the continuities, ruptures, anxieties, and possible futures of German-speaking Jews and their legacies.


Book Synopsis German–Jewish Studies by : Kerry Wallach

Download or read book German–Jewish Studies written by Kerry Wallach and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2022-10-14 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a field, German-Jewish Studies emphasizes the dangers of nationalism, monoculturalism, and ethnocentrism, while making room for multilingual and transnational perspectives with questions surrounding migration, refugees, exile, and precarity. Focussing on the relevance and utility of the field for the twenty-first century, German-Jewish Studies explores why studying and applying German-Jewish history and culture must evolve and be given further attention today. The volume brings together an interdisciplinary range of scholars to reconsider the history of antisemitism—as well as intersections of antisemitism with racism and colonialism—and how connections to German Jews shed light on the continuities, ruptures, anxieties, and possible futures of German-speaking Jews and their legacies.