The Infrahuman (Paperback)

Noam Pines

ISBN 10: 1438470665 / ISBN 13: 9781438470665

Edité par State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 2019

A propos de cet article

Paperback. Argues that Jewish writers used depictions of Jews as animals to question prevalent notions of Jewish identity.The Infrahuman explores a little-known aspect in major works of Jewish literature from the period preceding World War II, in which Jewish writers in German, Hebrew, and Yiddish employed figures of animals in pejorative depictions of Jews and Jewish identity. Such depictions are disturbing because they sometimes rival common anti-Semitic stereotypes, and have often been explained away as symptoms of Jewish self-hatred. In this book, Noam Pines shows how animality emerged in Jewish literature not as a biological or conceptual category, but as a theological figure of exclusion from a state of humanity and Christianity alike. By framing the human-animal question in theological terms rather than in racial-biological terms, writers such as Heinrich Heine, S. Y. Abramovitsh, Hayim Nachman Bialik, Uri Zvi Greenberg, Franz Kafka, S. Y. Agnon, and Paul Celan subjected the pejorative designations of Jewish identity to literary elaboration and to philosophical negotiation. Argues that Jewish writers used depictions of Jews as animals to question prevalent notions of Jewish identity. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.

N° de réf. du vendeur 9781438470665

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Infrahuman (Paperback)
• Éditeur: State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
• Date de parution: 2019
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 1438470665
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9781438470665
• Reliure: Paperback
• État de l'article: new

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Argues that Jewish writers used depictions of Jews as animals to question prevalent notions of Jewish identity.

The Infrahuman explores a little-known aspect in major works of Jewish literature from the period preceding World War II, in which Jewish writers in German, Hebrew, and Yiddish employed figures of animals in pejorative depictions of Jews and Jewish identity. Such depictions are disturbing because they sometimes rival common anti-Semitic stereotypes, and have often been explained away as symptoms of Jewish self-hatred. In this book, Noam Pines shows how animality emerged in Jewish literature not as a biological or conceptual category, but as a theological figure of exclusion from a state of humanity and Christianity alike. By framing the human-animal question in theological terms rather than in racial-biological terms, writers such as Heinrich Heine, S. Y. Abramovitsh, Hayim Nachman Bialik, Uri Zvi Greenberg, Franz Kafka, S. Y. Agnon, and Paul Celan subjected the pejorative designations of Jewish identity to literary elaboration and to philosophical negotiation.

À propos de l?auteur

Noam Pines is Assistant Professor in the Department of Jewish Thought at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York.