Placeless Topographies

Die Beiträge des Bandes konzentrieren die Auseinandersetzung mit Exilliteratur auf die jüdische Erfahrung von Exil, was dem Thema eine 2.500jährige historische Tiefe und eine entsprechende Vielfalt an literarischen Strategien, mit der Exilerfahrung umzugehen, zuspielt. Zugleich öffnet diese Perspektive Exilliteratur auch für das Spannungsfeld 'Exil und Heimkehr'. Die Aufsätze behandeln deutsche, französische und hebräische Exilliteratur, insbesondere des 20. Jahrhunderts.

Zusammenfassung

This book-series, initiated in 1992, has an interdisciplinary orientation; it is published in English and German and comprises research monographs, collections of essays and editions of source texts dealing with German-Jewish literary and cultural history, in particular from the period covering the 18th to 20th centuries.

The closer definition of the term German-Jewish applied to literature and culture is an integral part of its historical development. Primarily, the decisive factor is that from the middle of the 18th century German gradually became the language of choice for Jews, and Jewish authors started writing in German, rather than Yiddish or Hebrew, even when they were articulating Jewish themes. This process is directly connected an historical change in mentality and social factors which led to a gradual opening towards a non-Jewish environment, which in its turn was becoming more open. In the Enlightenment, German society becomes the standard of reference initially for an intellectual elite. Against this background, the term German-Jewish literature refers to the literary work of Jewish authors writing in German to the extent that explicit or implicit Jewish themes, motifs, modes of thought or models can be identified in them.
From the beginning of the 19th century at the latest, however, the image of Jews in the work of non-Jewish writers, determined mainly by anti-Semitism, becomes a factor in German-Jewish literature. There is a tension between Jewish writers' authentic reference to Jewish traditions or existence and the anti-Semitic marking and discrimination against everything Jewish which determines the overall development of the history of German-Jewish literature and culture. This series provides an appropriate forum for research into the whole problematic area.

Inhalt
Contents: Bernhard Greiner/Philipp Theisohn, Vorwort: Exil und Exilliteratur im jüdischen Horizont. - Guy Stern, From Exile Experience to Exile Studies. - Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, When Exiles Return: Jerusalem as Topos of the Mind and Soil. - Jakob Hessing, Heinrich Heine's »Reisebilder« as Images of Exile. - Philipp Theisohn, Erde / Papier. Kafka, Literatur und Landnahme. - Pierre Bouretz, Yichuv as Teshuvah: Gershom Scholem's Settlement in Jerusalem as Return from Assimilation. - Mark H. Gelber, Stefan Zweig's Conceptions of Exile. - Christoph Schmidt, Deus sive natura. The Transformation of the Jewish Apocalyptic Version of History into a Natural History in Jizchak Fritz Baer's Treatise of >GalutOrient<. The German-language Weekly »Orient« (Haifa, 1942--1943) between German Exile and Zionist Aliya. - Bernhard Greiner, Re-Präsentation: Exil als Zeichenpraxis bei Anna Seghers. - Rochelle Tobias, The Homecoming of a Word: Mystical Language Philosophy in Celan's »Mit allen Gedanken«. - Carola Hilfrich, »The Land of Others«. Geographies of Exile in Hélène Cixous's writings. - Frank Stern, The Two-Way Ticket to Hollywood and the Master-Images of 20th Century Modernism. - Philipp Theisohn, Nach Jerusalem.