The Politics of Jewishness in Contemporary World Literature: The Holocaust, Zionism and Colonialism

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Reading a wide range of novels from post-war Germany to Israeli, Palestinian and postcolonial writers, The Politics of Jewishness in Contemporary World Literature is a comprehensive exploration of changing cultural perceptions of Jewishness in contemporary writing. Examining how representations of Jewishness in contemporary fiction have wrestled with such topics as the Holocaust, Israeli-Palestinian relations and Jewish diaspora experiences, Isabelle Hesse demonstrates the colonial turn taken by these representations since the founding of the Jewish state. Following the dynamics of this turn, the book demonstrates new ways of questioning received ideas about victimhood and power in contemporary discussions of postcolonialism and world literature.

Reviews

The books strength lies in Hesses selection of a wide variety of fascinating literary texts, and in her ambitious engagement with theorists of trauma and post-colonial studies. While the discourse of trauma has had traction within Jewish academic discourse since the Holocaust, Hesse goes to great pains in order to situate the Jews within a post-colonial context Hesse successfully addresses stylistic and thematic renderings of the image of the Jew since 1945, as empowered, oppressive, and human, as opposed to simply a symbol of marginality and victimization. * Religion and Literature *
Nevertheless, Hesses book is an invigorating and deeply provocative meditation on how Jews have been conceptualised in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel. This is a signicant and important work for Jewish studies that confronts dicult and uncomfortable questions surrounding the ambivalent position the conceptual Jew still occupies in Jewish and non-Jewish imaginations. -- Joshua Lander * Modern Jewish Studies *

Author Bio

Isabelle Hesse is Lecturer in English at the University of Sydney, Australia.