The Object of Jewish Literature
WARNING
You are viewing an older version of the Yalebooks website. Please visit out new website with more updated information and a better user experience: https://www.yalebooks.com
A Material History
Barbara E. Mann
View Inside
Format: HardcoverPrice: $50.00
A history of modern Jewish literature that explores our enduring attachment to the book as an object
With the rise of digital media, the "death of the book” has been widely discussed. But the physical object of the book persists. Here, through the lens of materiality and objects, Barbara E. Mann tells a history of modern Jewish literature, from novels and poetry to graphic novels and artists’ books. Bringing contemporary work on secularism and design in conversation with literary history, she offers a new and distinctive frame for understanding how literary genres emerge.
The long twentieth century, a period of tremendous physical upheaval and geographic movement, witnessed the production of a multilingual canon of writing by Jewish authors. Literature’s objecthood is felt not only in the physical qualities of books—bindings, covers, typography, illustrations—but also through the ways in which materiality itself became a practical foundation for literary expression.
Barbara E. Mann is professor of cultural studies and Hebrew literature and the Chana Kekst Professor of Jewish Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She is the author of Space and Place in Jewish Studies.
“Original and finely instructive, this work leads us to see something new and illuminating about the very modality of literature.”—Robert Alter, author of The Art of Biblical Narrative
“At once erudite, evocative, and intellectually exciting, this extraordinary book incites us to think in new ways about materiality and literature. This beautifully written and infinitely rewarding book resists a quick reading, demanding careful attentiveness from the first word to the last.”—Leora Auslander, University of Chicago
Publication Date: July 26, 2022
76 b/w illus.
