My Four Years in Soviet Russia.
by Jerzy Edison, translated by Maurice Wolfthal
9781618112545
200 pp. cloth
$59.00
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Publication Date: June, 2013

This is the memoir of Yitzhak Erlichson, writing under the name Jerzy Edison, a Polish Jew who was nineteen years old when he escaped the Nazis by fleeing toward the USSR from his hometown, Wierzbnik. There he hoped to find a land true to its official ideals of justice, equality, and brotherhood. Arrested as an English spy, he was sent to prisons and slave-labor camps, and after his release worked and traveled in the USSR. To his dismay, he found there injustice, inequality, and anti-Semitism equal to that of his native Poland. Attempting to join the Polish army forming in the USSR, he was told it was “only for Poles.” He met and married his wife, Fania, during the war, and she nursed him back to health following his final imprisonment. They later returned to Wierzbnik only to learn that none of his family survived the German occupation. This fascinating story sheds new light on the realities of life in the USSR during the Second World War.

Series: Jews of Poland

The Most Tenacious of Minorities: The Jews of Italy.
by Sara Reguer
9781618112446
240 pp. cloth
$69.00
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Publication Date: June, 2013

Arriving in ancient Rome over 2,000 years ago, the Jewish communities of Italy have retained their identity throughout the millennia. This book traces their recreation of community, focusing on their economic, intellectual, and social lives, as they moved from south to north. Over the centuries, the localized Italian groups were reinforced with the arrival of German, Provencal, Sephardic, and—most recently—Ashkenazi and Middle Eastern Jews. Surviving religious persecution, ghetto-ization, and the Holocaust, the Jews contributed to Italian society when they could. Supplemented by maps, illustrations, sidebars, and primary sources, the book is a scholarly yet popular overview of a minority group that is proudly Italian and equally proud to be Jewish.

Series: No Series

Daughters of Israel, Daughters of the South: Jewish Women and Jewish Identity in The Antebellum and Civil War South.
by Jennifer A. Stollman
9781618112064
220 pp. cloth
$59.00
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Publication Date: May, 2013

Daughters of Israel, Daughters of the South: Southern Jewish Women and Identity in the Antebellum and Civil War South examines southern Jewish womanhood during the Antebellum and Civil War Eras. This study finds that in the Protestant South southern Jewish women created and maintained unique American Jewish identities through their efforts in education, writing, religious observance, paid and unpaid labor, and relationships with whites and African-American slaves This book examines how these women creatively fought proselytization, challenged anti-Semitism, maintained a distinctive southern Judaism, promoted their own status and legitimacy as southerners, and worked diligently as Confederate ambassadors.

Series: No Series

Encounters in Modern Jewish Thought: The Works of Eva Jospe (Volume One: Martin Buber).
by Eva Jospe, edited by Raphael Jospe, Dov Schwartz
9781618112651
216 pp. cloth
$69.00
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Publication Date: May, 2013

The first of a three-volume series, this book contains Eva Jospe’s previously unpublished study, “The Concept of Encounter in the Philosophy of Martin Buber,” together with several of her published articles on Buber and on modern Jewish thought, as well as a moving sermon she delivered in 1988, on the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht. As Ephraim Meir notes in his introduction to the volume, her clear presentation and analysis of Buber’s dialogical philosophy reflects a positive appreciation, but also pointed criticism of her one-time teacher’s thought. Volume Two of this series contains her translations of Moses Mendelssohn, and Volume Three her Reason and Hope: Selections from the Jewish Writings of Hermann Cohen.

Series: Classics in Judaica

German Jewry between Hope and Despair, 1871-1933.
edited by Nils Roemer
ISBN 978-1-934843-87-1
400 pp. cloth
$99.00
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Publication Date: April, 2013

German Jewry between Hope and Despair, 1871-1933, provides important interpretations of this tumultuous and conflict-ridden period and invites readers to partake in the ongoing debate over modern Jewish identities and cultures. Marked at the outset by emancipation and the emergence of modern anti-Semitism, the period witnessed a profound transformation of Jewish social, political, and religious life, culminating in the renaissance of Jewish cultures on the eve of the Holocaust. This textbook unites studies that inform our understanding of this historical epoch to this day as well as significant historical revisions. Among the many contributions are texts by Michael Brenner, Willi Goetschel, Marion Kaplan, George L. Mosse, Peter Pulzer, and Till van Rahden.

Series: Jews in Space and Time

Turn it and Turn it Again: Studies in the Teaching and Learning of Classical Jewish Texts.
edited by Susan P. Fendrick, Jon A. Levisohn
ISBN 978-1-936235-63-6
400 pp. cloth
$69.00
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Publication Date: April, 2013

The study of classical Jewish texts is flourishing in day schools and adult education, synagogues and summer camps, universities and yeshivot. But serious inquiry into the practices and purposes of such study is far rarer. In this book, a diverse collection of empirical and conceptual studies illuminates particular aspects of the teaching of Bible and rabbinic literature to, and the learning of, children and adults. In addition to providing specific insights into the pedagogy of Jewish texts, these studies serve as models of what the disciplined study of pedagogy can look like. This book will be of interest to teachers of Jewish texts in all contexts, and will be particularly valuable for the professional development of Jewish educators.

Reviews:

"...An almost Talmudic diversity of visions and statements that scholars, educators, and interested lay persons will all find valuable."--David M. Stern, Moritz and Josephine Berg Professor of Classical Hebrew Literature, University of Pennsylvania

"...Creates a true kaleidoscope of orientations for teaching classical Jewish texts. Both the substantive studies here and the frame that stands behind them will help sharpen our focus, whether about the inner workings of learning minds or about the electricity and passion of a successful beit midrash."--Rabbi Ethan Tucker, Rosh Yeshiva, Mechon Hadar

"...Coherent, illuminating, and a joy to read. These essays connect modern analytic scholarship on classical texts with the most current bodies of theory and practice in the study of teaching and learning. The book deserves a place on the desk of every serious Jewish educator."--Lee S. Shulman, President Emeritus, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Series: Jewish Identity in Post Modern Society

Mystical Vertigo: Contemporary Kabbalistic Hebrew Poetry Dancing Over the Divide.
by Aubrey L. Glazer
9781618111661
320 pp. cloth
$59.00
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Publication Date: March, 2013

Whether extroversive, introversive or some further hybrid, the process of the soul touching the fullness of its divine origins is itself undergoing transformation in the contemporary twenty-first century cultural matrices of Israel. Touching but not touching, or Touching God, what the mystics call mati v’lo mati, occurs throughout mystical poetics surrounding the unitive experience otherwise known as devekut. Rather than sketch out theological datum of the poetry at hand, this study seeks to explore the reality of devotional experience behind the poetic record and its correlations with contemporary Hasidic literature being written in Israel. From this collection of annotated translations, poetry returns to its conversation with pathways in thinking throughout Continental philosophy, revealing lost pathways of a vibrant Judaism. Selections include the devotional poetry of: Schulamith Hava HaLevi; Haya Esther; Haviva Pedaya; Zelda Schneerson Mishkovsky; Yonadav Kaplun; Haya Esther; Tamar Elad-Appelbaum; Agi Mishol; Admiel Kosman; and Binyamin Shevili.

Reviews:

“Aubrey Glazer is a relentless spiritual seeker whose scholarship conveys a deep search for concealed links, surprising facts, unconventional interpretations and new perspectives, awake at all time for traces of the divine. In this book he explores contemporary Israeli culture, mostly poetry, reading into the Israeli experience as a poetic spiritual text.” —Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed Shalom Hartman Institute

"In an original post-modern voice, Aubrey Glazer captures the mystical yearnings that pulse within contemporary Israeli poetry. Glazer reveals the longing for devekut and intimate transcendence that shines through and reimagines this new lyric landscape, both absorbing and re-visioning the older mystical tradition." --Eitan Fishbane, The Jewish Theological Seminary

"A fascinating exploration of the intersection of Jewish mysticism and contemporary Israeli poetry. In reading this challenging book, one is compelled to question the familiar distinctions between religious and secular, traditional and radical, ethereal and earthly. Highly original, erudite, and provocative." —Daniel C. Matt, author of the multi-volume annotated translation of the Zohar (The Zohar: Pritzker Edition)

Series: New Perspectives in Post-Rabbinic Judaism

I Saw It: Ilya Selvinsky and the Legacy of Bearing Witness to the Shoah.
by Maxim D. Shrayer
9781618111692
340 pp. cloth
$59.00
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Publication Date: March, 2013

In this ground-breaking book, based on archival and field research and previously unknown historical evidence, Maxim D. Shrayer introduces the work of Ilya Selvinsky, the first Jewish-Russian poet to depict the Holocaust (Shoah) in the occupied Soviet territories. In January 1942, while serving as a military journalist, Selvinsky witnessed the immediate aftermath of the massacre of thousands of Jews outside the Crimean city of Kerch, and thereafter composed and published poems about it. Shrayer painstakingly reconstructs the details of the Nazi atrocities witnessed by Selvinsky, and shows that in 1943, as Stalin’s regime increasingly refused to report the annihilation of Jews in the occupied territories, Selvinsky paid a high price for his writings and actions. This book features over 60 rare photographs and illustrations and includes translations of Selvinsky’s principal Shoah poems.

Reviews:

“This beautifully close reading of a major Soviet poet restores for us an important vision of the Holocaust.”—Timothy Snyder, Yale University

“Ilya Selvinsky was a Soviet Jewish poet writer who wrote explicitly about the Holocaust at a time when most Soviet writers avoided the subject. Though Selvinsky was in and out of political trouble, his undeniable talent and Stalin’s grudging admiration allowed him to survive. Maxim D. Shrayer tells his story vividly, comprehensively and convincingly. Unlike many literary studies, this deeply researched book is accessible, gripping and free of jargon. We learn not only about Selvinsky and other wartime writers, but also about Soviet policy toward the Holocaust and how it changed; the tense relations between the Party-State and writers; and the complexities of Jewish identities in the USSR.”—Zvi Gitelman, University of Michigan

“I Saw It is a major contribution to our knowledge and understanding of how Soviet Jewish writers and the regime in general responded to the Nazi massacres of Jews in German-occupied Soviet territory. As a soldier, poet, and journalist, Ilya Selvinsky was often on the front line, struggling to comprehend the enormity of the destruction and suffering around him. Based on painstaking and comprehensive research, Maxim D. Shrayer does a superb job of conveying the challenges of being a Soviet patriot and a Jew in the face of Hitler’s onslaught.”—Joshua Rubenstein, author of Tangled Loyalties: The Life and Times of Ilya Ehrenburg

“Soviet Jews, serving on the Eastern front, were the first to document the German war against the Jews. The most memorable response was, indeed, the first: a Russian-language poem so immediate, so personal and so graphic, that even Stalin and his henchmen could not suppress the poem, nor, try as they did, the courageous poet who authored it. This is the remarkable story, never before told, of the Jewish-Russian poet Ilya Selvinsky, who despite all odds first taught his fellow Jews and Russians how to mourn their incalculable losses.”—David G. Roskies, Jewish Theological Seminary, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

“Comprehensive, meticulously researched, erudite, and up-to-date, with sober assessments and insightful interpretive comments, Maxim D. Shrayer’s study of Ilya Selvinsky closes gaps both in the history of Soviet Russian literature and in the history of the literature of the Holocaust.”—Leona Toker, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

“Maxim D. Shrayer’s searing account of the struggles of a famous Soviet-Jewish poet and military officer, Ilya Selvinsky, is among the most original and illuminating studies of the Holocaust as experienced by a generation of Soviet intellectuals who witnessed the atrocities and were at the forefront of Stalin’s propaganda war against Nazism. Shrayer’s research on Selvinsky is impressive and stunning. Scholars and students alike will appreciate Shrayer’s presentation of Selvinsky’s moving poetry, revealing diary entries, and rare family photographs—all of this rich material Shrayer contextualizes in a deep historical and literary analysis of this era's fanatical idealism and genocide. Standing at the edge of a mass grave of Jewish victims in his native region of Crimea at Kerch, Selvinsky followed his conscience by writing the poem, “I Saw It,” to testify, and express his outrage and grief. In this penetrating book of Selvinsky's struggles, Shrayer pays a double tribute—to a shattered idealist and patriot who captured the soul of his people in his poetry, and to the victims of the Shoah whose voices like those of a generation of Soviet Jewish intellectual-witnesses were muted by postwar Soviet censors who suppressed the Holocaust.”—Wendy Lower, Claremont McKenna College

“In I Saw It, Maxim D. Shrayer meticulously and unflinchingly chronicles the Nazi massacre of Jews in Kerch, Crimea, and its reflection in Ilya Selvinsky’s extraordinarily powerful poems. Selvinsky, a convinced communist generally willing to compromise, suffered considerably for his stubborn attempts to bring the Shoah to the attention of the Soviet reading public. Shrayer brings together social, political, historical, and poetic questions, producing a memorable book that will fascinate a broad range of readers.”—Michael Wachtel, Princeton University

"A sophisticated literary analysis of Ilya Selvinsky's texts, Maxim D. Shrayer's book demonstrates a deep knowledge of the history of the Holocaust in the USSR. It is the first study of poet's career in the context of Shoah memorization. Shrayer's book must be published in Russian translation."—Ilya Altman, Russian Holocaust Center, Russian State University for the Humanities

Series: Studies in Russian and Slavic Literatures, Cultures and History

Return of the Jew: Identity Narratives of the Third Post-Holocaust Generation of Jews in Poland.
by Katka Reszke
9781618112460
230 pp. cloth
$79.00
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Publication Date: February, 2013

A new, “unexpected” generation of Jews made an appearance in Poland following the fall of the communist regime. Once home to the greatest Jewish community in the world and then site of one of the biggest tragedies in Jewish history, today Poland is experiencing what some have called a “renaissance of Jewish culture.” Simultaneously, more and more Poles are discovering their Jewish roots and beginning to seek forms of Jewish affiliation. Can there be “authentic” Jewish life in Poland after fifty years of oppression? Return of the Jew offers the first in-depth study of the third post-Holocaust generation of Jews in Poland. It provides a revealing account of the experience of being or rather becoming Jewish vis-a-vis uniquely compelling circumstances.

Reviews:

“Uniquely positioned as both an insider and an acute outside observer, Katka Reszke provides an insightful analysis of a controversial and still developing phenomenon that has bemused, perplexed and sometimes enraged the outside Jewish world. In doing so, she gives rare – and welcome -- voice to the actual protagonists, Poland’s “new Jews,” and sets in complex context their unprecedented, and often poignant, quest for place, identity and selfhood amid the brave new Jewish realities of post-communist Poland.”—Ruth Ellen Gruber, Award winning American writer, editor, and photographer  

“Most Jews think there are no more Jews in Poland. This is not true even though in comparison with the millions of Jews before World War II the present number seems like nothing. The Jews who were born in Poland after the war and have lived there come mostly from assimilated and mixed families. Their search for roots and their readoption, or reconstruction, of some sort of Jewish identity provides for a fascinating story. Katka Reszke has been able to tell the story, building on her own involvement in it and on many interviews with young adults. The book gives an insight into their identity search and the expansion of Jewish presence in present day Poland -- an unexpected bonus of the demise of Communism in 1989.”—Professor Stanislaw Krajewski, the University of Warsaw, Poland, Author of "Poland and the Jews. Reflections of a Polish Polish Jew"

Series: Jews of Poland

Hats in the Ring: Choosing Britain's Chief Rabbis from Adler to Sacks.
by Meir Persoff
9781618111777
400 pp. cloth
$69.00
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Publication Date: February, 2013

Prior to the latest Chief Rabbinical selection process, seven eminent rabbis were appointed to British Jewry’s highest ecclesiastical post, although only six were installed and saw out their terms of office. The manner of their appointment was invariably coloured by intrigue, in-fighting and a host of other influences, not least an increasingly potent input by the dayanim of the London Beth Din, themselves not immune to strategic self-interest. Meir Persoff’s scholarly yet accessible account of these seven appointments draws on a wealth of hitherto unaccessed and unpublished material, and on the stories of many of the protagonists involved, including in fascinating detail those who, by fair means and foul, failed to gain (or chose to reject) the coveted prize.

Reviews:

"Historians sharply focused on Anglo-Jewry will have reason to be grateful to Dr Persoff for the choice fare that he has here set before them. Whatever their views, and however they understand the personalities and interpret the events, they will find themselves in his debt for having drawn attention to such a wealth of source material and for having made available to them many items that were hitherto unknown or inadequately exploited."—Stefan C. Reif, Emeritus Professor of Medieval Hebrew and Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge




Series: Judaism and Jewish Life

Faith, Reason, and Politics: Essays on the History of Jewish Thought.
by Michah Gottlieb
9781936235872
260 pp. cloth
$85.00
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Publication Date: February, 2013

The past decade has witnessed renewed interest in the faith-reason debate. But all too often the debate is treated in generic terms, without paying attention either to differences between religious traditions or to the historical development of these traditions. Judaism, with its emphasis on religious law, yields insights into the political ramifications of the problem that differ greatly from Christian approaches. In Faith, Reason, and Politics, Michah Gottlieb explores Jewish approaches to the faith-reason debate through detailed analyses of Jewish thinkers from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries, including Judah Halevi, Maimonides, Spinoza, Moses Mendelssohn, Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Leo Strauss, This book will appeal to scholars and students interested in the problem of faith versus reason and in the relationship between religion and politics.

Reviews:

“Faith, Reason, Politics: Essays in the History of Jewish Thought brings together several penetrating studies of the relationship between faith and reason in the history of Jewish thought. Gottlieb writes with rigor and cogency about the medieval thinkers Judah Halevi and Moses Maimonides and the modern tradition beginning with Baruch Spinoza and Moses Mendelssohn, and highlights the diversity and complexity of approaches to the relationship between reason, faith, morality, mysticism, and religious practice. The essays offer probing and novel analyses and methodological insights; the volume ends with a passionate defense of the contemporary significance of religious rationalism. Gottlieb’s historical and philosophical investigations are astute, his writing lucid and engaging. The volume is a superb contribution to the analysis of the Jewish philosophical tradition.”—Diana Lobel, Boston University

"With Faith and Freedom: Moses Mendelssohn' Theological Political Thought, Michah Gottieb has established himself as a top scholar of modern Jewish philosophy. The current collection of essays is another superb contribution to the field."—Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Johns Hopkins University

“This is an excellent collection of essays by a learned and perceptive young scholar. Michah Gottlieb's insights into the relation between medieval and modern Jewish philosophy are fascinating and thought-provoking.”—Warren Zev Harvey, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Series: Reference Library of Jewish Intellectual History

With Both Feet on the Clouds: Fantasy in Israeli Literature.
edited by Elana Gomel, Rani Graff, Danielle Gurevitch
9781936235834
250 pp. cloth
$75.00
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Publication Date: February, 2013

Why do Israelis dislike fantasy? Put so bluntly, the question appears frivolous. But in fact, it goes to the deepest sources of Israeli historical identity and literary tradition. Uniquely among developed nations, Israel’s origin is in a utopian novel, Theodor Herzl’s Altneuland (1902), which predicted the future Jewish state. The Jewish writing in the Diaspora has always tended toward the fantastic, the mystical, and the magical. And yet, from its very inception, Israeli literature has been stubbornly realistic. The present volume challenges this stance. Originally published in Hebrew in 2009, it is the first serious, wide-ranging and theoretically sophisticated exploration of fantasy in Israeli literature and culture. Its contributors jointly attempt to contest the question posed at the beginning: why do Israelis, living in a country whose very existence is predicated on the fulfillment of a utopian dream, distrust fantasy?

Reviews:

“From the Talmudic sages to Bashevis-Singer, from medieval story-tellers to young contemporary Israeli writers, Jewish fantasy has been a treasure trove of the imagination, at least on a par with Greek and Norse mythologies. Yet unlike them, it has only rarely reveived scholarly attention. That is why this volume is so badly needed, and so timely, as interest in fantasy is becoming more intense worldwide.”–Emanuel Lottem, co-founder and first chairperson, Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy

Series: Israel: Society, Culture, and History

Personal Theology: Essays in Honor of Neil Gillman.
by William Plevan
9781618111685
275 pp. cloth
$85.00
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Publication Date: February, 2013

Neil Gillman has been a part of the JTS community for over 50 years as a student, administrator and member of the faculty. His most enduring contribution as a scholar and a teacher has been a renewed focus on the importance of theological reflection in rabbinic education and Jewish education, both in the Conservative movement and Jewish life generally. This volume seeks to honor Professor Gillman’s contributions to Jewish scholarship and education by collecting essays by his colleagues and students that discuss the issues most central to his work, namely Jewish theology, Conservative Judaism and Jewish education.

Reviews:

“A worthy tribute of substance, esteem and affection to the master teacher and fearless theologian of our day, who has given a lifetime of service and thought to the welfare of the Seminary and the cause of Conservative Judaism.”—Ismar Schorsch, Professor and Former Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary

"Gillman's innovative thinking about how to construe Jewish faith and how to justify it, his use of anthropology as well as philosophy in approaching questions of God and life after death, and his ability to combine complete intellectual openness and honesty with a commitment to Jewish tradition mark his work as truly important, indeed, a real gift to Jews and non-Jews alike. It is an honor to contribute to this volume in his honor."—Elliot Dorff, Rector, Sol & Anne Dorff Distinguished Service Professor in Philosophy, American Jewish University

Series: New Perspectives in Post-Rabbinic Judaism

Her Glory All Within: Rejecting and Transforming Orthodoxy in Israeli and American Jewish Women's Fiction.
by Barbara Landress
9781618111715
215 pp. cloth
$75.00
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Publication Date: December, 2012

Representation of the religious sector is a new phenomenon in modern Israeli literature,emerging from a diversification of Israeli culture that began in the 1970’s. Inthis volume Landress explores the intricacies of fiction stories about Orthodoxwomen in contemporary contexts, offering subtle interpretations of theconflicts in Orthodox women's lives as they weave their way throughdaughterhood, motherhood, politics, and personal dilemmas, negotiating betweentradition and modernity. This body of Israeli women’s writing is considered incomparative perspective with contemporary American Jewish women’s writing thatengages Orthodoxy, and draws on sociology, anthropology, and feminist theory. 

Review:

“Landress’ pioneering work establishes the roadmap, and provides the key, for women’s literary treatments of orthodoxy in the two largest centers of contemporary Jewish life. This is a must-read, not only for those interested in the fraught relationship between feminism and orthodoxy, but also for those curious about the tensions between national, religious, and gender identities in America and Israel, and the provocative parallels between the two. An elegant and sensitively-drawn dialogue between Israeli Jewish and American Jewish literature, Her Glory All Within is a vital contribution to the study of comparative Jewish literatures.”
—Jill Aizenstein, Ph.D., author of Engaging America: Immigrant Jews in American Hebrew literature

Series: Studies in Orthodox Judaism

God's Kindness has Overwhelmed Us: A Contemporary Doctrine of the Jews as the Chosen People.
by Jerome (Yehuda) Gellman
9781618111708
120 pp. cloth
$59.00
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Publication Date: December, 2012

Jerome Gellman presents a new theology of the Jews as the Chosen People, addressing self-serving ethnocentric supremacy, cultural isolation, and defamation of religions other than Judaism. This book is traditional in taking chosenness and the truth of Judaism seriously, and in eschewing a theology of multiple covenants. At the same time, it is critical, rejecting previous concepts of chosenness, and innovative, offering for the twenty-first century a fresh way of seeing the Jews’ place in the world. On this foundation, Gellman suggests a new approach to inter-religious understanding from a Jewish point of view, and examines the impact of his proposal on traditional Jewish liturgy.

Reviews:

“Chosenness remains the most challenging subject for any Jewish theology. This is particularly so in an interreligious age. Gellman brings fresh air where others either avoid engagement or simply repeat the formulations of yesteryear. Breaking theological ground is important both because of the solution it offers and because of the invitation to others to treat a difficult topic with the greatest seriousness. Gellman achieves both laudably. A must read anyone with serious interest in contemporary Jewish theology.”—Rabbi Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein, Director, the Elijah Interfaith Institute

“Yehuda Gellman combines an acute philosophical mind with his deep Jewish faith in this fine new volume of theology. Taking up a critical-traditional stance to the great debates about this issue, Gellman clearly and helpfully promotes a new approach to the Jews as God’s chosen people. Anyone interested in either inter-faith dialog with Judaism, current Christian discussion of cessationism, or with contemporary Jewish theology, will find this stimulating book to be essential reading.”—Alan G. Padgett, Professor of Systematic Theology, Luther Seminary (Saint Paul, Minnesota)

Series: Emunot: Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah

Checking out Chekhov: A Companion to Anton Chekhov’s Plays.
by Sharon Carnicke
9781936235919
200 pp. cloth
$60.00
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Publication Date: June, 2013

This book paints the vivid portrait of Anton Chekhov—a Russian writer whose elusive personality and richly detailed plays have left an indelible imprint upon the world’s theatre. Every page reveals the joys and difficulties of his short life, his comic sensibility, deep compassion, and often puzzling use of dramatic style and genre. Carnicke demystifies Chekhov’s plays—forged from his literary innovations, avid theatergoing, love of vaudeville, and loathing of melodrama. She interweaves biographical and cultural information with insightful case studies and close analysis to leave her reader with a full and fresh perspective on an artist, who is as foundational to theatrical traditions as are Shakespeare and Stanislavsky.

“Checking out Chekhov brings the enigmatic writer to life in a profoundly exciting way. It is a transformative book for any actor or lover of the theatre!”  —Mary Joan Negro, Founding Member of The Acting Company (New York), Tony Award Nominee, and Associate Professor of Theatre Practice, University of Southern California

“Carnicke’s book excels as an overview of the whole phenomenon of Chekhovian drama. It astutely situates his dramaturgy in relevant contexts: from late 19th-century Russian literature, including Chekhov’s own short stories, to contemporary theatrical practices. Its signal achievement is to provide a deeper understanding of Chekhov’s plays, free from the distorting cliches that too often attend them.”  —Thomas Seifrid, Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Southern California

“In a lively and engaging style Carnicke presents a broad swath of biographical and historical material necessary for a truly informed production of Chekhov on the stage. This is a must-read for scholars, students, and performers.”  —Brian R. Johnson, Assistant Professor of Russian, Swarthmore College

“Writing with sharp insight, Carnicke reveals the often-overlooked clues essential to appreciating and producing successfully the elusive plays of Chekhov. This book is indispensable reading for anyone who wishes to uncover the mysteries of how his plays really work.”  —R. Andrew White, Actor, Director, and Associate Professor, Valparaiso University

Series: Companions to Russian Literature

Freedom From Violence and Lies: Essays on Russian Poetry and Music by Simon Karlinsky.
edited by Robert P. Hughes, Thomas A. Koster, Richard A. Taruskin
9781618111586
330 pp. cloth
$89.00
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Publication Date: June, 2013

Simon Karlinsky (1924-2009) was a prolific, provocative, and controversial scholar of modern Russian literature, of sexual politics, and of music. He held advanced degrees from Harvard University (MA, 1961); and the University of California, Berkeley (PhD, 1964), where he taught in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures from 1964 to 1991. Among his path-breaking publications were two studies of the life and works of Marina Tsvetaeva (in 1966 and 1985), The Sexual Labyrinth of Nikolai Gogol (1976), Russian Drama from Its Beginnings to the Age of Pushkin (1985), and editions of the letters of Anton Chekhov (1973), as well as the letters of Russian emigre writers and the correspondence between Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson (1979; 2001). He was a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review, the Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, and a wide range of professional journals.

Series: Ars Rossika

Russians Abroad: Literary and Cultural Politics of Diaspora (1919-1939).
edited by Katerina Clark, Nancy Condee, Dan Slobin, Mark Slobin
9781618112149
260 pp. cloth
$59.00
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Publication Date: June, 2013

The book presents an array of perspectives on the vivid cultural and literary politics that marked the period immediately after the October Revolution of 1917, when Russian writers had to relocate to Berlin and Paris under harsh conditions. Divided amongst themselves and uncertain about the political and artistic directions of life in the diaspora, these writers carried on two simultaneous literary dialogues: with the emerging Soviet Union and with the dizzying world of European modernism that surrounded them in the West. Chapters address generational differences, literary polemics and experimentation, the heritage of pre-October Russian modernism, and the fate of individual writers and critics, offering a sweeping view of how exiles created a literary diaspora. The discussion moves beyond Russian studies to contribute to today’s broad, cross-cultural study of the creative side of political and cultural displacement.

Praise for Russians Abroad:

“Greta Slobin’s highly illuminating study on Russian emigre writing of the 1920s–1940s is an important contribution to the area of Russian twentieth-century studies. Its conceptually sophisticated theoretical framework enables Slobin to offer significant insights into the artistic imagination, memory wars and cultural politics of the most influential representatives of Russian diaspora, including Bunin, Remizov, Nabokov, Tsvetaeva and Adamovich. Being well aware of the importance of the Pushkin myth and the Doestoevsky myth to the construction of the national identity among Russian emigre communities, Slobin suggests that the re-discovery of the works of Ivan Turgenev in the 1930s enabled Russian emigre authors in France to preserve the sense of cultural continuity. In an impressive way, Slobin manages to elucidate many complexities associated with the reception of Russian emigre culture of the first wave in the post-Soviet Period. It is likely to be an indispensable source of information on Russian diaspora of the 1920s–40s for many years to come.”  —Alexandra Smith, Edinburgh University

Series: The Real Twentieth Century

Shapes of Apocalypse: Arts and Philosophy in Slavic Thought.
edited by Andrea Oppo
9781618111746
275 pp. cloth
$85.00
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Publication Date: May, 2013

This collective volume aims to highlight the philosophical and literary idea of “apocalypse,” within some key examples in the “Slavic world” during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From Russian realism to avant-garde painting, from the classic fiction of the nineteenth century to twentieth-century philosophy, and not omitting theatre, cinema or music, there is a specific examination of the concepts of “end of history” and “end of present time” as conditions for a redemptive image of the world. To understand this idea means to understand an essential part of Slavic culture, which, however divergent and variegated it may be in general, converges on this specific myth in a surprising manner.

Reviews:

"This volume, spanning such diverse areas as philosophy, literature, music, art, and film, is broadly appealing to an interdisciplinary audience interested in both Slavic and non-Slavic conceptions of the apocalypse."--Michael Pesenson, professor of Slavic Studies, University of Texas at Austin

Series: Myths and Taboos in Russian Culture

Close Encounters: Essays on Russian Literature.
edited by Robert Louis Jackson
ISBN 978-1-936235-56-8
377 pp. cloth
$89.00
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Publication Date: March, 2013

Close Encounters: Essays on Russian Literature combines discussions of ethical, esthetic, and philosophical interest raised by Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Gorky, with close analyses of their texts. This book focuses on four thematic configurations: first (“Chance and Fate”), issues of freedom and responsibility, the necessity of free individual expression and yet the limits of will, or self-will; second (“Two Kinds of Beauty”), the unity of moral, esthetic, and spiritual categories, and the quest for the ideal; third (“Critical Perspectives”), examples of the type of commentary that approaches art with a unified ethical and spiritual perspective (Dostoevsky, Gorky, V.I. Ivanov, and the partially dissenting Bakhtin); and fourth (“Poems of Parting”), three poems (works by Tyutchev, Severyanin, and Pushkin) involving parting, loss, and recovery.

Series: Ars Rossika

“I am a phenomenon quite out of the ordinary”: The Notebooks, Diaries, and Letters of Daniil Kharms.
edited by Anthony Anemone, Peter Scotto
9781936235964
600 pp. cloth
$69.00
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Publication Date: February, 2013

In addition to his numerous works in prose and poetry for both children and adults, Daniil Kharms (1905-42), one of the founders of Russia’s “lost literature of the absurd,” wrote notebooks and a diary for most of his adult life. Published for the first time in recent years in Russian, these notebooks provide an intimate look at the daily life and struggles of one of the central figures of the literary avant-garde in Post-Revolutionary Leningrad. While Kharms’s stories have been translated and published in English, these diaries represent an invaluable source for English-language readers who, having already discovered Kharms in translation, desire to learn about the life and times of an avant-garde writer in the first decades of Soviet power.

Series: Cultural Revolutions: Russia in the Twentieth Century

"Tsar and God" and Other Essays in Russian Cultural Semiotics.
by Boris Uspenskij, Viktor Zhivov, translated by Marcus C. Levitt
ISBN 978-1-936235-49-0
300 pp. cloth
$99.00
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Publication Date: December, 2012

Featuring a number of pioneering essays by the internationally known Russian cultural historians Boris Uspenskij and Victor Zhivov, this collection includes a number of essays appearing in English for the fi rst time. Focusing on several of the most interesting and problematic aspects of Russia’s cultural development, these essays examine the survival and the reconceptualization of the past in later cultural systems and some of the key transformations of Russian cultural consciousness. The essays in this collection contain some important examples of Russian cultural semiotics and remain indispensable contributions to the history of Russian civilization.

Series: Ars Rossika

Chapaev and his Comrades: War and the Russian Literary Hero Across the Twentieth Century.
by Angela Brintlinger
9781618112026
285 pp. cloth
$69.00
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Publication Date: December, 2012

Across the twentieth century, the Russian literary hero remained central to Russian fiction and frequently “battled” one enemy or another, whether on the battlefield or on a civilian front. War was the experience of the Russian people, and it became a dominant trope to represent the Soviet experience in literature as well as other areas of cultural life. This book traces those war experiences, memories, tropes, and metaphors in the literature of the Soviet and post-Soviet period, examining the work of Dmitry Furmanov, Fyodor Gladkov, Alexander Tvardovsky, Emmanuil Kazakevich, Vera Panova, Viktor Nekrasov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Vladimir Voinovich, Sergei Dovlatov, Vladimir Makanin, Viktor Astafiev, Viktor Pelevin, and Vasily Aksyonov. These authors represented official Soviet literature and underground or dissident literature; they fell into and out of favor, were exiled and returned to Russia, died at home and abroad. Most importantly, they were all touched by war, and they reacted to the state of war in their literary works.

Series: Cultural Revolutions: Russia in the Twentieth Century

The Russian Avant-Garde and Radical Modernism: An Introductory Reader.
edited by Dennis G. Ioffe, Frederick H. White
ISBN 978-1-936235-29-2
488 pp. cloth
$59.00
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Publication Date: October, 2012

The Russian avant-garde was a composite of antagonistic groups who wished to overthrow the basic aesthetics of classical realism. Modernism was the totality of these numerous aesthetic theories, which achieved a measure of coherence immediately after the First World War. This collection of essays by leading scholars examines the major figures, movements, and manifestos of the period. Scholarly attention is given to literature, visual arts, cinema, and theatre in an attempt to capture the complex nature of the modernist movement in Russia. This book would be especially relevant for university courses on the Russian twentieth century as well as for those looking for a comprehensive approach to the various movements and artistic expressions that constitute the Russian avant-garde.

Reviews:

"A remarkable volume, The Russian Avant-Garde and Radical Modernism brings together the most significant movements and figures in Russian experimental art, cinema, and literature of the early twentieth century (both pre-Soviet and Soviet) and presents them in commentary by leading scholars in the field. The result is a vibrant introduction to Russian aesthetic thought of the last century, as well as to cutting-edge assessments of its meaning. A volume like this has long been overdue. It will be enormously useful to students of Russian culture in the modern era as well as anyone seeking a better understanding of modernism in general—an artistic movement to which Russian artists made particularly brilliant contributions."—Thomas Seifrid, University of Southern California

Stimulating and comprehensive, gracefully written, filled with fascinating details and counterintuitive conclusions, this essential introduction to the Russian Avant-Garde offers a convincing and perceptive analysis of the Russian radical aesthetic thought and brings valuable new light to the most important developments in twentieth-century art. In the age of skepticism, repetition, and nostalgia for olden time dynamism a reading of these texts brings back a sense of freshness, power and fearlessness of Russian art in its heyday. —Evgeny Dobrenko, University of Sheffield

Series: Cultural Syllabus

Babel in Context: A Study in Cultural Identity.
by Efraim Sicher
978936235957
270 pp. cloth
$80.00
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Publication Date: October, 2012

Isaak Babel (1894-1940) is arguably one of the greatest modern short story writers of the early twentieth century. Yet his life and work are shrouded in the mystery of who Babel was—an Odessa Jew who wrote in Russian, who came from one of the most vibrant centers of east European Jewish culture and all his life loved Yiddish and the stories of Sholom Aleichem.This is the first book in English to study the intertextuality of Babel’s work. It looks at Babel’s cultural identity as a case study in the contradictions and tensions of literary influence, personal loyalties, and ideological constraint. The complex and often ambivalent relations between the two cultures inevitably raise controversial issues that touch on the reception of Babel and other Jewish intellectuals in Russian literature, as well as the “Jewishness” of their work.

Reviews:

“Isaac Babel is the first name on everyone’s list of Russian Jewish authors. Efraim Sicher’s book not only makes a highly significant contribution to Babel scholarship, but also provides a point of departure for those working in Russian Jewish studies generally. Sicher is one of the very few scholars who discuss Hebrew literature in the Russian setting of the 1920s. Hebrew was one of the components of the multilingual culture of Odessa, which also included Russian and Yiddish, and in which Babel and other, similar authors, lived and worked, as Sicher shows. Thanks to Sicher’s work, we now have access to Babel’s dialogue with Yiddish writers and with the Hebrew authors Bialik and Hazaz, and the Hebrew journal Breshit. This is a fascinating and important study.”—Harriet Murav, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

“In this profoundly original book, the distinguished Babel scholar Efraim Sicher examines this elusive writer through a defining set of linguistic, cultural, and historical contexts. Everything is here: the Babel who was infatuated with Maupassant, the Babel who tried writing in the framework of collectivization, the untangled biography, and, best of all, the Babel who, as a native speaker of Yiddish, drew from the rich traditions of Yiddish and Hebrew literature centered in Odessa.”—Alice Nakhimovsky, Colgate University

“The essays in this volume offer a comprehensive view of Isaac Babel’s literary legacy, shaped by Russia, but deeply rooted in Jewish culture, Jewish history, and Jewish identity. Sicher reads Babel like a palimpsest, revealing layer after layer of cultural and literary allusion. Babel in Context: A Study in Cultural Identity is an indispensable contribution to Babel scholarship by one of its most distinguished pioneers.”—Grisha Freidin, Stanford University

Series: Borderlines: Jews of Russia/Eastern Europe and Their Legacy