Recovering Yiddishland: Threshold Moments in American Literature Bachman Merle L.
According to traditional narratives of assimilation, in the bargain made for an American identity, Jews freely surrendered Yiddish language and culture. Or did they? Recovering "Yiddishland" seeks to…
Specifikacia Recovering Yiddishland: Threshold Moments in American Literature Bachman Merle L.
According to traditional narratives of assimilation, in the bargain made for an American identity, Jews freely surrendered Yiddish language and culture. Or did they? Recovering "Yiddishland" seeks to return readers to a threshold where Americanization also meant ambivalence and resistance. It reconstructs Yiddishland as a cultural space produced by Yiddish immigrant writers from the 1890s through the 1930s, largely within the sphere of New York.Rejecting conventional literary history, the book spotlights threshold texts in the unjustly forgotten literary project of these writers--texts that reveal unexpected and illuminating critiques of Americanization. Merle Lyn Bachman takes a fresh look at Abraham Cahan's Yekl and Anzia Yezierska's Hungry Hearts, tracing in them a re-inscription of the Yiddish world that various characters seem to be committed to leaving behind. She