Wandering Signifier , livre ebook

237

pages

English

Ebooks

2008

Écrit par
Zivin Erin Graff Zivin Graff

Publié par
Duke University Press

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237

pages

English

Ebooks

2008

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

Duke University Press

Date de parution

29 décembre 2008

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780822390039

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

While Jews figure in the work of many modern Latin American writers, the questions of how and to what end they are represented have received remarkably little critical attention. Helping to correct this imbalance, Erin Graff Zivin traces the symbolic presence of Jews and Jewishness in late-nineteenth- through late-twentieth-century literary works from Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, and Nicaragua. Ultimately, Graff Zivin's investigation of representations of Jewishness reveals a broader, more complex anxiety surrounding difference in modern Latin American culture.In her readings of Spanish American and Brazilian fiction, Graff Zivin highlights inventions of Jewishness in which the concept is constructed as a rhetorical device. She argues that Jewishness functions as a wandering signifier that while not wholly empty, can be infused with meaning based on the demands of the textual project in question. Just as Jews in Latin America possess distinct histories relative to their European and North American counterparts, they also occupy different symbolic spaces in the cultural landscape. Graff Zivin suggests that in Latin American fiction, anxiety, desire, paranoia, attraction, and repulsion toward Jewishness are always either in tension with or representative of larger attitudes toward otherness, whether racial, sexual, religious, national, economic, or metaphysical. She concludes The Wandering Signifier with an inquiry into whether it is possible to ethically represent the other within the literary text, or whether the act of representation necessarily involves the objectification of the other.

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Publié par

Duke University Press

Date de parution

29 décembre 2008

EAN13

9780822390039

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

Latin America Jewish studies

The Wandering Signiﬁer

The Wanderîng Sîgnîier •

R h e t o R i c o f J e w i s h n e s s i n t h e L a t i n a m e R i c a n i m a g i n a R y

Erîn Graff Zîvîn

•

D u k e u n i v e R s i t y P R e s s Durham & London 2008

Printed in the United States of America on acidfree paperb

Typeset in Quadraat by Achorn International

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

appear on the last printed page of this book.

Permissions: Sections of chapter 1 ﬁrst appeared as “Reading Max Nordau: Unspeakable Difference in Spanish American Modernism,”Chasqui 34.1 (2005): 102–13; “Traducir lo raro: Darío, Ingenieros, y Silva leen a Max Nordau,” inLiteratura y otras artes en America Latina: Actas del34th Congreso del Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana,ed.Balderston et al., 203–11 (Iowa City: University of Iowa, 2004); “The

Face of the Other: Diagnosing Jewishness in Latin American Lit erature,”Modern Jewish Studies14 (2004): 91–101; “Cuerpos errantes, sujetos patológicos en la obra de Luisa Futoransky y Margo Glantz,” inMemoria y representación: Conguraciones culturales y literarias en elimaginario judío latinoamericano,ed. Alejandro Meter and ArianaHuberman, 249–62 (Rosario, Argentina: Beatriz Viterbo Editora, 2006); and “Sick Jews: Disease and Deformity in Luisa Futoransky’s De Pe a Pa: De Pekín a Parísand Margo Glantz’s ‘Zapatos: Andantecon variaciones,’” inLuisa Futoransky y su palabra itinerante,ed. Ester Gimbernat González, 123–32 (Montevideo, Uruguay: Hermes Crio llo, 2005). An earlier, Spanishlanguage version of part of chapter 2 was published as “Transacciones judías y discursos promiscuos en ‘Emma Zunz,’”Variaciones Borges22 (2006): 191–99.

For my parents

119

154

179 195 207

•c o n t e n t s

Acknowledgments

Introduction “Jewishness,” Alterity, and the Ethics of Representation

OneDiagnosing “Jewishness”

TwoThe Scene of the Transaction

ThreeTextual Conversions

FourThe Limits of Representation

Notes Bibliography Index

•a c k n o w L e D g m e n t s

There are many people without whose support I would not have been able to write this book. At New YorkUniversity, I had ﬁve exceptionally talented and warm dissertationcommittee members. Sylvia Molloy’s role in the fashioning of the conceptual framework of this project was vital, and her unceasing moral support has provided me with conﬁdence at critical moments dur ing the process of writing my dissertation and book. Gabriela Basterra’s brilliant work on ethical subjectivity has been an inspiration: the seminars I took with her at NYU, as well as our many conversations outside of the classroom, have impacted my work in a profound way, and I am deeply indebted to her generosity. I would like to thank Marta Peixoto for numerous unscheduled con versations in her ofﬁce during my years at NYU (anddelightful Princeton coffee dates since then), as well as Mary Louise Pratt and Georgina Dopico Black for their

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