The Cambridge History of Jewish American Literature

This History presents a comprehensive history of Jewish American literature from its origins to the present day.

Hana Wirth-Nesher (Edited by)

9781108701334, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 March 2019

750 pages, 5 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15 x 3.8 cm, 1.05 kg

'The Cambridge History of Jewish American Literature is indeed a landmark, a superior assortment of field-defining essays, and a testimony to scholarly activity and achievements in the rich transnational, transcultural, polylingual field of Jewish American literature.' Cheryl Lester, Philip Roth Studies

This History offers an unparalleled examination of all aspects of Jewish American literature. Jewish writing has played a central role in the formation of the national literature of the United States, from the Hebraic sources of the Puritan imagination to narratives of immigration and acculturation. This body of writing has also enriched global Jewish literature in its engagement with Jewish history and Jewish multilingual culture. Written by a host of leading scholars, The Cambridge History of Jewish American Literature offers an array of approaches that contribute to current debates about ethnic writing, minority discourse, transnational literature, gender studies, and multilingualism. This History takes a fresh look at celebrated authors, introduces new voices, locates Jewish American literature on the map of American ethnicity as well as the spaces of exile and diaspora, and stretches the boundaries of American literature beyond the Americas and the West.

1. Encountering the idea of America Julian Levinson
2. Encountering English Hana Wirth-Nesher
3. Encountering native origins Rachel Rubinstein
4. Immigration and modernity, 1900–45 Werner Sollors
5. Making it into the mainstream, 1945–70 Benjamin Schreier
6. New voices, new challenges, 1970–2000 Michael Wood
7. Religious selfhood, 1870–1950 Shira Wolosky
8. Secularity, sacredness, and Jewish American poets, 1950–2000 Maeera Y. Shreiber
9. Yiddish American poetry Avraham Novershtern
10. Yiddish theater in America Nahma Sandrow
11. Jewish American drama Edna Nahshon
12. Jews and film Jonathan Freedman
13. Hebrew in America Michael Weingrad
14. Ladino in US literature and song Monique Rodrigues Balbuena
15. Writing and remembering Jewish Middle Eastern pasts Dalia Kandiyoti
16. The ghost of the Holocaust in the construction of Jewish American literature Emily Miller Budick
17. Israel in the Jewish American imagination Naomi Sokoloff
18. Their New York: possessing the 'capital of words' Murray Baumgarten
19. Spaces of Yidishkayt: New York in American Yiddish prose Mikhail Krutikov
20. Landscapes: America and the Americas Sarah Phillips Casteel
21. Across the border: Canadian Jewish writing Rebecca Margolis
22. The role of the public intellectual in American culture Jesse Raber
23. The caravan returns: Jewish American literary anthologies, 1935–2010 Wendy I. Zierler
24. Poetics and politics of translation Anita Norich
25. Jews on America's racial map Adam Zachary Newton
26. Gender poetics in Jewish American poetry Kathryn Hellerstein
27. Performance: queerly Jewish/Jewishly queer in the American theater Alisa Solomon
28. Jewish American comic books and graphic novels Laurence Roth
29. Jewish American popular culture Stephen J. Whitfield
30. Jewish humor in America Marc Caplan
31. Since 2000 Josh Lambert.

Subject Areas: Jewish studies [JFSR1], History of the Americas [HBJK], Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]