Description

Pairing the two concepts of diaspora and modernism, Allison Schachter formulates a novel approach to modernist studies and diasporic cultural production. Diasporic Modernisms illuminates how the relationships between migrant writers and dispersed readers were registered in the innovative practices of modernist prose fiction. The Jewish writers discussed-including S. Y. Abramovitsh, Yosef Chaim Brenner, Dovid Bergelson, Leah Goldberg, Gabreil Preil, and Kadia Molodowsky--embraced diaspora as a formal literary strategy to reflect on the historical conditions of Jewish language culture. Spanning from 1894 to 1974, the book traces the development of this diasporic aesthetic in the shifting centers of Hebrew and Yiddish literature, including Odessa, Jerusalem, Berlin, Tel Aviv, and New York. Through an analysis of Jewish writing, Schachter theorizes how modernist literary networks operate outside national borders in minor and non-national languages.

Offering the first comparative literary history of Hebrew and Yiddish modernist prose, Diasporic Modernisms argues that these two literary histories can no longer be separated by nationalist and monolingual histories. Instead, the book illuminates how these literary languages continue to animate each other, even after the creation of a Jewish state, with Hebrew as its national language.

Features

• Presents the first comparative study of Hebrew and Yiddish prose modernism
• Offers a truly global examination of Yiddish and Hebrew literature as it focuses on Jewish literary centers in Odessa, Berlin, Tel Aviv, and New York
• Challenges traditional Zionist narratives of Hebrew literary history

Reviews

"Allison Schachter's lucid, richly informed account of the productive ambivalences between Hebrew and Yiddish modernism has implications beyond the history of Jewish literatures. As the assumed confluence between national borders and national literatures loosens, there is a lesson for our times in this perceptive study of diasporic creativity." --Robert Alter, author of Hebrew and Modernity

"A very powerful response to scholarship that remains bound to nationalist frameworks, Diasporic Modernisms provides a convincing new model for understanding the relationship between the literatures of modern Hebrew and Yiddish." --Barry Trachtenberg, author of The Revolutionary Roots of Modern Yiddish, 1903-1917

"Allison Schachter's important and eloquent book shows us why transnational modernism can't be all in one language. Diasporic Modernisms argues convincingly that literary histories organized around English, German, Hebrew, or any other single tongue tend to reaffirm the exclusive project of the nation-state. By following the intersecting paths of Yiddish and Hebrew literary modernisms, Schachter introduces us to innovative writing best understood in a multilingual context of multiple centers and multiple audiences. Anyone interested in ways of thinking about modernism beyond the nation and beyond Western Europe will want to read this book." --Rebecca Walkowitz, author of Cosmopolitan Style: Modernism Beyond the Nation

"Diasporic Modernisms is smart, beautifully written, and meticulously researched. Working to decouple the link between nation, language and territory, the book suggests the model of diaspora to illuminate the multilingual conditions in which modernist Hebrew and Yiddish writing thrived. While neither 'about' history nor geography per se, Schachter's study raises compelling questions about both as categories of literary analysis, bringing Jewish literary studies into conversation with theories of modernism and diaspora studies." --Barbara Mann, author of A Place in History: Modernism, Tel Aviv, and the Creation of Jewish Urban Space

"Impressive in scope and attention to shifting contexts, Diasporic Modernisms boldly rethinks the role of Hebrew and Yiddish in the shaping of diasporic modernisms. Schachter offers a powerful account of the way these languages, with their linked and mutual histories, enabled variously situated Jewish writers to create the conditions for experimental modernism, thematize the nonterritorial relation between Jewish-language writers and readers, and negotiate crises of nationalism and representation." --Sara Blair, coeditor of Jewish in America

Product Details

208 pages; 1 illustration; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-981263-9ISBN10: 0-19-981263-2

About the Author(s)