Orientalism and the Figure of the Jew

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, European, German, Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Judaism, History, Germany
Cover of the book Orientalism and the Figure of the Jew by Jeffrey S. Librett, Fordham University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Jeffrey S. Librett ISBN: 9780823262939
Publisher: Fordham University Press Publication: November 3, 2014
Imprint: Fordham University Press Language: English
Author: Jeffrey S. Librett
ISBN: 9780823262939
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Publication: November 3, 2014
Imprint: Fordham University Press
Language: English

Orientalism and the Figure of the Jew proposes a new way of understanding modern Orientalism. Tracing a path of modern Orientalist thought in German across crucial writings from the late eighteenth to the mid–twentieth centuries, Librett argues that Orientalism and anti-Judaism are inextricably entangled.

Librett suggests, further, that the Western assertion of “material” power, in terms of which Orientalism is often read, is overdetermined by a “spiritual” weakness: an anxiety about the absence of absolute foundations and values that coincides with Western modernity itself. The modern West, he shows, posits an Oriental origin as a fetish to fill the absent place of lacking foundations. This fetish is appropriated as Western through a quasi-secularized application of Christian typology. Further, the Western appropriation of the “good” Orient always leaves behind the remainder of the “bad,” inassimilable Orient.

The book traces variations on this theme through historicist and idealist texts of the nineteenth century and then shows how high modernists like Buber, Kafka, Mann, and Freud place this historicist narrative in question. The book concludes with the outlines of a cultural historiography that would distance itself from the metaphysics of historicism, confronting instead its underlying anxieties.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Orientalism and the Figure of the Jew proposes a new way of understanding modern Orientalism. Tracing a path of modern Orientalist thought in German across crucial writings from the late eighteenth to the mid–twentieth centuries, Librett argues that Orientalism and anti-Judaism are inextricably entangled.

Librett suggests, further, that the Western assertion of “material” power, in terms of which Orientalism is often read, is overdetermined by a “spiritual” weakness: an anxiety about the absence of absolute foundations and values that coincides with Western modernity itself. The modern West, he shows, posits an Oriental origin as a fetish to fill the absent place of lacking foundations. This fetish is appropriated as Western through a quasi-secularized application of Christian typology. Further, the Western appropriation of the “good” Orient always leaves behind the remainder of the “bad,” inassimilable Orient.

The book traces variations on this theme through historicist and idealist texts of the nineteenth century and then shows how high modernists like Buber, Kafka, Mann, and Freud place this historicist narrative in question. The book concludes with the outlines of a cultural historiography that would distance itself from the metaphysics of historicism, confronting instead its underlying anxieties.

More books from Fordham University Press

Cover of the book Dissonance by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book Deep Time, Dark Times by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book Rethinking Media Pluralism by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book The Imperative to Write by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book Zonas Peligrosas by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book The Republic of the Living by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book Flirtations by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book Theory at Yale by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book Temporality and Trinity by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book Fueling Culture by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book The Poetics of Ruins in Renaissance Literature by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book At Freedom's Limit by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book Thresholds of Listening by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book The Human Eros by Jeffrey S. Librett
Cover of the book The Search for Major Plagge by Jeffrey S. Librett
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy