Statlander, Jane
Cultural Dialectic

Ludwig Lewisohn and Cynthia Ozick.

This book defines and analyzes the elusive concept of cultural dialectic, as it ambiguously manifests itself in selected works of Lewisohn and Ozick. Taken separately, the terms 'cultural' and 'dialectic' each open onto a vast panorama of different - and sometimes competing - significances. Dialectic is understood to represent the Judaic dialectic, or 'pilpul', which describes a complementary webbing of consciousness and centerlessness. Lewisohn's and Ozick's works are viewed as unique examples of a complex mesh of Judaic, Western, European, American, and Gentile cultural determinants. A slippery confluence of contrasting characteristics, these writings are both autobiographically non-fictional and fictional; factually true, but also invented. Writings discussed include Lewisohn's "Up Stream", "Holy Land: A Story", "The Case of Mr. Crump", "The Island Within", "Trumpet of Jubilee" and Ozick's "The Pagan Rabbi", "Envy; or, Yiddish in America", "Levitation", "The Shawl", "Rosa", and "The Cannibal Galaxy". IX,384 Seiten, gebunden (Twentieth-Century American Jewish Writers; Vol. 10/Peter Lang Verlag 2002) Mängelexemplar/near mint