Anglophone Jewish Literature - First published 2007 - Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature

Sep 18, 2026

Anglophone Jewish literature examines how Jewish literary production in English has developed outside traditional classifications of “new literatures in English.” This collection of essays addresses the field’s scholarly neglect by exploring transnational and transcultural Anglophone Jewish writing through a plurality of theoretical frameworks. Contributions from leading scholars in British and American Jewish literature analyze postcolonial, cultural, and contemporary discourses, tracing historical affinities and differences across the Anglophone diaspora.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages305

Reading Time7 h 50 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Introduction - Jewish literature(s) in English? Anglophone Jewish writing and the ‘loquation’ of culture

On being a Jewish critic

The Jewish imaginary in non-Jewish Anglophone literature(s)

Postcolonial discourse and the Jewish imaginary

What’s more important than a gesture? Jewishness and cultural performativity

Changing centres, changing peripheries and spaces in-between: Jewish writing from the Anglophone diaspora(s) – America

Literary symptomology and Jewish fiction: ‘Envy; or, The New Yiddish in America’

Jewish/Queer: thresholds of vulnerable identities in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America

Fifty ways to see your lover: vision and revision in the fiction of Amy Bloom

Changing centres, changing peripheries and spaces in-between: Jewish writing from the Anglophone diaspora(s) – Britain

Otherness and affiliation in Anglo-Jewish poetry

Diasporic voices? Second-generation Jewish authors in Britain

Changing centres, changing peripheries and spaces in-between: Jewish writing from the Anglophone diaspora(s) – postcolonia

Postcolonialism and the Irish-Jewish experience: the novels of David Marcus and Ronit Lentin

Jewish writers and postcolonial choices in South Africa

Jewish literature in Australia

Contemporary Jewish Canadian plays on the Canadian stage

The Anglo-Israeli writer: double identities in troubled times

The ‘loquation’ of Jewish culture

Voices of identity: language in Jewish-American literature

The words to say it: the loss of language and power in Cynthia Ozick’s ‘Envy; or, Yiddish in America’

Ricki Lake in Tel Aviv: the alternative of Orly Castel-Bloom’s Hebrew-English

Anglophone Jewish writers

Bibliography

Index

Anglophone Jewish Literature Anglophone Jewish literature is not traditionally numbered among the new literatures in English. Rather, Jewish literary production in English has conventionally been classified as ‘hyphenated’ and has therefore not yet been subjected as such to the scrutiny of scholars of literary or cultural history. This collection of essays addresses this lack and initiates the scholarly exploration of transnational and transcultural Anglophone Jewish literature as oneof the New English Literatures. Without attempting to impose what would seem to be a misguided conceptual unity on the many-faceted field of Anglophone Jewish literature, the book is based on a plurality of theoretical frameworks. Alert to the productive friction between these discourses, which it aims to elicit, it confronts Jewish literary studies with postcolonial studies, cultural studies and other contemporary theoretical frameworks. Featuring contributions from among the best-known scholars in the fields of British and American Jewish literature, including Bryan Cheyette and Emily Miller Budick, this collection transcends borders of both nations and academic disciplines and takes into account cultural and historical affinities and differences of the Anglophone diaspora which have contributed to the formation and development of the English-language segment of Jewish literature. Axel Stähler is Lecturer in Comparative Literary Studies in the School of European Culture and Languages at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature 1 Testimony from the Nazi Camps French women’s voices Margaret-Anne Hutton 2 Modern Confessional Writing New critical essays Edited by Jo Gill 3 Cold War Literature Writing the global conflict Andrew Hammond 4 Modernism and the Crisis of Sovereignty Andrew John Miller 5 Cartographic Strategies of Postmodernity The figure of the map in contemporary theory and fiction Peta Mitchell 6 Anglophone Jewish Literature Axel Stähler Anglophone Jewish Literature Edited by Axel Stähler First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of [eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk](eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk).” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2007 Axel Stähler All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-93922-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0–415–41464–4 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–203–93922–0 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–41464–7 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–93922–2 (ebk) Contents Notes on contributors viii Foreword by Jonathan Wilson xii PART I Introduction 1 1 Introduction – Jewish literature(s) in English? Anglophone Jewish writing and the ‘loquation’ of culture 3 AXEL STÄHLER 2 On being a Jewish critic 33 BRYAN CHEYETTE PART II The Jewish imaginary in non-Jewish Anglophone literature(s) 49 3 Postcolonial discourse and the Jewish imaginary 51 JAMIE S . SCOTT 4 ‘What’s more important than a gesture?’: Jewishness and cultural performativity 65 SIGRUN MEINIG PART III Changing centres, changing peripheries and spaces in-between: Jewish writing fr

FAQs

What scholarly gap does the collection address about Anglophone Jewish literature?

It addresses the fact that Anglophone Jewish literature has not traditionally been treated as a distinct “new literature in English” and therefore has not received comparable scrutiny from scholars of literary and cultural history.

Which theoretical approaches does the book use to study Anglophone Jewish writing?

The book is grounded in a plurality of theoretical frameworks, with attention to the productive friction between discourses, including postcolonial studies and cultural studies.

How is the book structured across regions and topics?

The contents are organized into parts that cover topics such as the Jewish imaginary in non-Jewish Anglophone literature, Jewish writing from Anglophone diasporas across America, Britain, and postcolonial contexts, and “the ‘loquation’ of Jewish culture.”

Sep 18, 2026

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