Postmodern Love in the Contemporary Jewish Imagination

Negotiating Spaces and Identities

Efraim Sicher author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:25th Sep '23

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Postmodern Love in the Contemporary Jewish Imagination cover

Offering a radical critique of contemporary Israeli and diaspora fiction by major writers of the generation after Amos Oz and Philip Roth, this book asks searching questions about identity formation in Jewish spaces in the twenty-first century and posits global, transnational identities instead of the bipolar Israel/diaspora model.

The chapters put into conversation major authors such as Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Michael Chabon, and Nathan Englander with their Israeli counterparts Zeruya Shalev, Eshkol Nevo, and Etgar Keret and shows that they share common themes and concerns. Read through a postmodern lens, their preoccupation with failed marriage and failed ideals brings to the fore the crises of home, nation, historical destiny, and collective memory in contemporary secular Jewish culture.

At times provocative, at others iconoclastic, this innovative study must be read by anyone concerned with Jewish culture and identity today, whether scholars, students, or the general reader.

"Through finely tuned close readings, Sicher probes deeply into Jewish identity in a postmodern world. Both learned and caring, it should be welcomed by all as a serious exploration of some of the major challenges facing Jews today." Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Indiana University, USA

"… sensitive and provocative readings of contemporary Jewish fiction. In examining spatial and temporal sites of identity-formation from a global and transnational perspective, this important study presents an original approach to the construction of Jewishness in the literary imagination." Victoria Aarons, Trinity University, USA

"He [Sicher] does close readings of the texts he discusses and examines recurring themes and motifs, like Jewish-Arab love, the lover’s body as nation-state, and post-Zionism . . . Sicher illuminates literary histories, identifies intellectual and creative antecedents, and proposes comparisons with contemporaries for each of his case studies . . . in Postmodern Love, we read summaries and analyses of a dizzying array of Jewish novels." Karen E. H. Skinazi in Modern Philology, volume 121, number 2 (2023)

ISBN: 9781032135069

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 453g

232 pages