| The Impossible Jew: Identity and the Reconstruction of Jewish American Literary History Subjects: Jewish literature -- United States -- History and criticism; Jews -- Identity; Cahan Abraham 1860–1951 -- Criticism and interpretation; Roth Philip -- Criticism and interpretation; Foer Jonathan Safran 1977– -- Criticism and interpretation; He destroys in order to create. In a sweeping critique of the field, Benjamin Schreier resituates Jewish Studies in order to make room for a critical study of identity and identification. Displacing the assumption that Jewish Studies is necessarily the study of Jews, this book aims to break down the walls of the academic ghetto in which the study of Jewish American literature often seems to be contained: alienated from fields like comparative ethnicity studies, American studies, and multicultural studies; suffering from the unwillingness of Jewish Studies to accept critical literary studies as a legitimate part of its project; and so often refusing itself to engage in self-critique. Schreier Benjamin : Benjamin Schreier is an Associate Professor of English and Jewish Studies and Lea P. and Malvin E. Bank Early Career Professor in Jewish Studies at Penn State University. He is author of The Power of Negative Thinking: Cynicism and the History of Modern American Literature and the editor of the journal Studies in American Jewish Literature. |