The Edinburgh Companion to Modern Jewish Fiction (Edinburgh Companions to Literature and the Humanities) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1399508830 ISBN 13: 9781399508834

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2022

Synopsis

Provides critical overviews of the main writers and key themes of Anglophone Jewish fiction
This collection of essays represents a new departure for, and a potentially (re)defining moment in, literary Jewish Studies. It is the first volume to bring together essays covering a wide range of American, British, South African, Canadian and Australian Jewish fiction. Moreover, it complicates all these terms, emphasising the porousness between different national traditions and moving beyond traditional definitions of Jewishness. For the sake of structural clarity, the volume is divided into three parts – ‘American Jewish Fiction’, ‘British Jewish Fiction’ and ‘International and Transnational Anglophone Jewish Fiction’ – but many of the essays cross over these boundaries and speak to each other implicitly, as well as, on occasion, explicitly. Extending and redefining the canon of modern Jewish fiction, the volume juxtaposes major authors with more marginal figures, revising and recuperating individual reputations, rediscovering forgotten and discovering new work, and in the process remapping the whole terrain. This volume opens windows onto vistas that previously had been obscured and opens doors for the next generation of studies that could not proceed without a wide-ranging, visionary empiricism grounding their work. The Edinburgh Companion is a paradigm-changing event, and nothing in Jewish literary studies that follows can fail to pay close attention to it.
Key Features:
Highlights the rich diversity of the field and identifies its key themes, including immigration, the Diaspora, the Holocaust, Judaism, assimilation, antisemitism and Zionism
Analyses the main trends in Anglophone Jewish fiction and situates them in historical context
Discusses the place of Anglophone Jewish fiction in relation to critical debates concerning transatlanticism and transnationalism; ethnicity and identity politics; postcolonial studies, feminist studies and Jewish Studies.
With a preface by Mark Shechner, the volume contains 28 essays by contributors including Vicki Aarons (Trinity University, Texas), Debra Shostak (Wooster College, Ohio), Ira Nadel (University of British Columbia), Efraim Sicher (Ben-Gurion University, Phyllis Lassner (Northwestern University), Sue Vice (University of Sheffield), Lori Harrison-Kahan (Boston College), Ruth Gilbert (University of Winchester), Beate Neumeier (University of Cologne) andSandra Singer (University of Guelph).

David Brauner is Professor of Contemporary Literature at The University of Reading.
Axel Stähler is Reader in Comparative Literature at the University of Kent, Canterbury.

About this title

About the Authors

David Brauner is Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of Reading. He is the author of two monographs - Post-War Jewish Fiction: Ambivalence, Self-Explanation and Transatlantic Connections (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2001) and Philip Roth (Manchester University Press, 2007) - and has also published widely on twentieth-century Jewish literature, contemporary American fiction and post-war novelizations of biblical narratives.

Dr Axel Stähler is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Kent. He is the editor of Writing Fundamentalism, with Klaus Stierstorfer (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009) and Anglophone Jewish Literature (Routledge, 2007).

From the Back Cover

‘The Edinburgh Companion to Modern Jewish Fiction is a prodigious, paradigm-shifting collection. Made up of leading scholars in the field, it both ranges widely across linguistic and national boundaries and also includes detailed accounts of American, British, South African, Canadian and Australian Jewish fiction. It will transform our understanding of Jewish literary studies.’Bryan Henry Cheyette, Chair in Modern Literature, University of ReadingProvides critical overviews of the main writers and key themes of Anglophone Jewish fictionThis collection of essays represents a new departure for, and a potentially (re)defining moment in, literary Jewish Studies. It is the first volume to bring together 28 chapters covering a wide range of American, British, South African, Canadian and Australian Jewish fiction.The volume is divided into 3 parts – American Jewish Fiction; British Jewish Fiction; and International and Transnational Anglophone Jewish Fiction – but many of the essays cross over these boundaries and speak to each other implicitly, as well as, on occasion, explicitly. Extending and redefining the canon of modern Jewish fiction, the volume juxtaposes major authors with more marginal figures, revising and recuperating individual reputations, rediscovering forgotten and discovering new work, and in the process remapping the whole terrain. This volume opens windows onto vistas that previously had been obscured and opens doors for the next generation of studies that could not proceed without a wide-ranging, visionary empiricism grounding their work.Key Features•Highlights the rich diversity of the field and identifies its key themes, including immigration, the Diaspora, the Holocaust, Judaism, assimilation, antisemitism and Zionism•Analyses the main trends in Anglophone Jewish fiction and situates them in historical context•Discusses the place of Anglophone Jewish fiction in relation to critical debates concerning transatlanticism and transnationalism; ethnicity and identity politics; postcolonial studies, feminist studies and Jewish Studies•With a preface by Mark Shechner, the volume’s contributors include Vicki Aarons (Trinity University, Texas), Debra Shostak (Wooster College, Ohio), Ira Nadel (University of British Columbia), Efraim Sicher (Ben-Gurion University), Phyllis Lassner (Northwestern University), Sue Vice (University of Sheffield), Lori Harrison-Kahan (Boston College), Ruth Gilbert (University of Winchester), Beate Neumeier (University of Cologne) and Sandra Singer (University of Guelph)David Brauner is Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of Reading.Axel Stähler is Reader in Comparative Literature at the University of Kent, Canterbury.Cover image: Ghetto Theatre by David Bomberg, 1920 © The Estate of David Bomberg. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2014.Cover design: Michael Chatfield[EUP logo]www.euppublishing.com

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1399508830
• ISBN 13: 9781399508834
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 456
• Editor: Brauner David, Stähler Axel