Kanon und Diskurs

The rise of literary history is closely associated with the rise of the modern national states, an “imaginary” parallel that catastrophically peaked in the 20th century and today leads a rather pale existence. The literary history of Jewish literature is a special case that demands attention be given to the various linguistic and symbolic peculiarities as well as its own ideas of space and time due to the transnational, diasporic environment(s). In this volume, Susanne Zepp and Natasha Gordinsky interpret texts from modern literature, among others, by Yoel Hoffmann and Ljudmila Ulitzkaja, which reflect the complexity of Jewish life. They view literature not as a canon, but rather as discourse, and thus as a medium that penetrates national, religious and cultural borders.