Modernity, Culture and the Jew - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745620418 ISBN 13: 9780745620411

Publisher: Polity, 1998

Synopsis

This book provides a rich and wide-ranging analysis of Jewishhistory and culture, relating them to theories of modernity andpostmodernity and to recent debates on ethnicity andpostcolonialism. Issues addressed include psychoanalysis andgender, literary anti-semitism, (post)modernity and 'the Jew', andthe memory of the Holocaust. A Foreword by Homi Bhabha and anAfterword by Paul Gilroy place these concerns in an extendedmulticultural and postcolonial context.
The book examines the work of past and present cultural theoristswho have placed the figure of 'the Jew' at the heart of theirversion of modernity and postmodernity. Many of the essays locate'the Jew' at the centre of Western metropolitan culture. But theyalso explore the ways in which Jews have historically been excludedin order for ascendant racial and sexual identities to be formedand maintained. Cheyette and Marcus argue that there is a virtue inthe ambivalent positioning which characterizes Jewish history andculture both then and now.
The volume places a disruptive and uncontainable Jewish history andculture in the context of current debates about gendered, sexualand ethnic identities. It challenges postcolonial and postmodernrevisions of modernity which locate Jews in a dominantJudeo-Christian tradition or appropriate them to signify theuniversality of the modern subject. It will be of interest tostudents and scholars in Jewish studies, cultural studies, sociology, history, literature and philosophy.

About this title

Review:

"It has long been recognized that the Jewish experience, in all its ambivalence, stands at the centre of Western modernity. These essays are a splendid testimony to that view. Ranging from the French Revolution to the Holocaust and to current debates on postmodernity, a host of distinguished scholars throws a fresh and piercing light on some of the most significant episodes of modern cultural and political history." Krishan Kumar, University of Virginia "Modernity, Culture and a The Jewa is a serious, rewarding book, at the cutting edge of contemporary Jewish studies." Jewish Chronicle "This book provides a rich and wide--ranging analysis of Jewish history and culture." Bollettino del CIRT a Brian Cheyette and Laura Marcus have assembled a wonderful anthology of critical essays on the image of Jews and Judaism in modern European culture.a Patterns of Prejudice "This is a special book on the history of Jewish cultural studies in the United Kingdom, but it is of great value to any critic interested in the problems of the Jews (however defined) and the modern." Studies in Contemporary Jewry

About the Author:

Bryan Cheyette and Laura Marcus are the authors of Modernity, Culture and 'The Jew', published by Wiley.

About this edition

• Publisher: Polity
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0745620418
• ISBN 13: 9780745620411
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Cheyette Bryan, Marcus Laura