Jews and the Ends of Theory

Description

Theory, as it's happened across the humanities, has often been coded as "Jewish." This collection of essays seeks to move past explanations for this understanding that rely on the self-evident (the historical centrality of Jews to the rise of Critical Theory with the Frankfurt School) or stereotypical (psychoanalysis as the "Jewish Science") in order to show how certain problematics of modern Jewishness enrich theory.In the range of violence and agency that attend the appellation "Jew," depending on how, where, and by whom it's uttered, we can see that Jewishness is a rhetorical as much as a sociological fact, and that its rhetorical and sociological aspects, while linked, are not identical. Attention to this disjuncture helps to elucidate the questions of power, subjectivity, identity, figuration, language, and relation that modern theory has grappled with. These questions in turn implicate geopolitical issues such as the relation of a people to a state and the violence done in the name of simplistic identitarian ideologies.Clarifying a situation where "the Jew" is not readily or unproblematically legible, the editors propose what they call "spectral reading," a way to understand Jewishness as a fluid and rhetorical presence. While not divorced from sociological facts, this spectral reading works in concert with contemporary theory to mediate pessimistic and utopian impulses, experiences, and realities.Contributors: Svetlana Boym, Andrew Bush, Sergey Dolgopolski, Jay Geller, Sarah Hammerschlag, Hannan Hever, Martin Land, Martin Jay, James I. Porter, Yehouda Shenhav, Elliot R. Wolfson

Sujets

• Jewish studies
• Judaism

Informations

• Publié par: Fordham University Press
• Date de parution: 04 décembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780823282029
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

J e w s a n d t h e E n d s o f T h e o r y

Jews and the Ends ofTheory

Shai Ginsburg, Martin Land, and Jonathan Boyarin Editors

f o r d h a m u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s New York 2019

Fordham University Press gratefully acknowledges financial assistance and support provided for the publication of this book by Cornell University and Duke University.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ginsburg, Shai, 1967– editor. | Boyarin, Jonathan, editor. Title: Jews and the ends of theory / Shai Ginsburg, Martin Land, and Jonathan Boyarin, editors. Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Fordham University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers:lccn2018011247|isbn9780823282005 (cloth : alk. paper) |isbn 9780823281992 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects:lcsh: Jews—Intellectual life—20th century. | Jews—Intellectual life—21st century. | Jewish literature—History and criticism—Theory, etc. | Critical theory. | Criticism (Philosophy)—History. | Jewish philosophy. Classification:lcc ds113.j57 2019 |ddc909/.04924082—dc23 lcrecord available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011247

Printed in the United States of America 21 20 19 5 4 3 2 1 First edition

to the memory of

Helen Tartar z’l and Svetlana Boym z’l

c o n t e n t s

Introduction: Jews, Theory, and Ends shai ginsburg, martin land, and jonathan boyarin

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1. Leo Lowenthal and the Jewish Renaissance martin jay27 2. The Palestinian Nakba and the Arab-Jewish Melancholy: An Essay on Sovereignty and Translation yehouda shenhav48 3. The Ends of Ladino andrew bush65 4. The Last Jewish Intellectual: Derrida and His Literary Betrayal of Levinas sarah hammerschlag88 5. Jews, in Theory sergey dolgopolski108 6. TJheewishAnimot: Of Jews as Animals jay geller142 7. The Off-Modern Turn: Modernist Humanism and Vernacular Cosmopolitanism in Shklovsky and Mandelshtam svetlana boym164 8. Old Testament Realism in the Writings of Erich Auerbach james i. porter187 9. Buber versus Scholem and the Figure of the Hasidic Jew: A Literary Debate between Two Political Theologies hannan hever225 10. Against the “Attack on Linking”: Rearticulating the “Jewish Intellectual” for Today martin land263

viii

11.

Recovering Futurity: Theorizing the End and the End of Theory elliot r. wolfson

List of Contributors Index

Contents

293

313 317

i n t r o d u c t i o n Jews, Theory, and Ends

Shai Ginsburg, Martin Land, and Jonathan Boyarin

This book examines the intersections of three terms —Jews,theory, and ends. These intersections have informed strategies of scholarly and intel- lectual engagements with society, culture, history, and politics that, in the aftermath of World War II, informed the “human sciences” in Western and Central Europe and North America (and, given the military and economic dominance of the latter, in other regions of the world as well). Often, such strategies came to be grouped together under the monikerscriticism,theory, or, at times,critical theory. What would happen, we ask, when one turns to critical theory and evokes “the Jew”: When, where, and why does this figure emerge and become vis- ible? To what end, to what ends? At what — or at whose — expense? And what figure is it? Of nationality? Race? Ethnicity? Religion? Language? How do the spatial (geographical) and temporal (historical) coordinates of its emergence, alongside the perceptions of space and time to which it gave rise, shape our perspective of the present moment, its past, and future? Of our place in the world in relation to others? And what does the perspective of the present, marked by multiple intellectual, cultural, economic, and political crises and breaches — contribute to our understanding of these

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