Facing Black and Jew : literature as public space in twentieth-century America
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Facing Black and Jew : literature as public space in twentieth-century America
（Cultural margins）
Cambridge University Press, 1999
- : hard bound
- : pbk
Available at 21 libraries
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 204-213) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
A reading of African American and Jewish American writers from Henry Roth and Ralph Ellison to Philip Roth and David Bradley. Reading the work of such writers alongside and through one another, Newton's book offers an original way of juxtaposing two major traditions in modern American literature, and rethinking the sometimes vexed relationship between two constituencies ordinarily confined to sociopolitical or media commentary alone. Newton combines Emmanuel Levinas's ethical philosophy and Walter Benjamin's theory of allegory in shaping an innovative kind of ethical-political criticism. Through artful, dialogical readings of Saul Bellow and Chester Himes, David Mamet and Anna Deavere Smith, and others, Newton seeks to represent American Blacks and Jews outside the distorting mirror of 'Black-Jewish Relations', and restrictive literary histories alike. A final chapter addresses the Black/Jewish dimension of the O. J. Simpson trial.
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Introduction, Part I. The Space Between Black and Jew: Part II. History and Allegory: A Match Made in Shadow: 1. 'An antiphonal game' and beyond: facing Call It Sleep and Invisible Man
- 2. 'Jew me sue me dont you black or white me': the (ethical)politics of recognition in Saul Bellow and Chester Himes
- 3. Words Generally Spoil Things and Giving a Man a Final Say: facing history The Chaneysville Incident and Operation Shylock
- 4. Literaturized Blacks and Jews
- or, Golems and Tar Babys: fates of recognition in John Edgar Wideman and Bernard Malamud
- 5. Black-Jewish inflations: face (off) in Mamet's Homicide and the O. J. Simpson trial
- Postface Deja vu all over again: Ann Deavere Smith's Fires in the Mirror.
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