Diaspora, considered as a context for insights into Jewish identity, brings together a lively, interdisciplinary group of scholars in this innovative volume. Readers needn't expect, however, to find easy agreement on what those insights are. The concept "diaspora" itself has proved controversial; galut, the traditional Hebrew expression for the Jews' perennial condition, is better translated as "exile." The very distinction between diaspora and exile, although difficult to analyze, is important enough to form the basis of several essays in this fine collection.
"Identity" is an even more elusive concept. The contributors to Diasporas and Exiles explore Jewish identity—or, more accurately, Jewish identities—from the mutually illuminating perspectives of anthropology, art history, comparative literature, cultural studies, German history, philosophy, political theory, and sociology. These contributors bring exciting new emphases to Jewish and cultural studies, as well as the emerging field of diaspora studies. Diasporas and Exiles mirrors the richness of experience and the attendant virtual impossibility of definition that constitute the challenge of understanding Jewish identity.
Howard Wettstein is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. Author of Has Semantics Rested on a Mistake?, and Other Essays (1991), and of the forthcoming The Magic Prism: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (2003), he is an editor of the philosophical annual, Midwest Studies in Philosophy.
"Rarely have I encountered a collection of essays that coheres so well around an overarching theme. This will be an important resource."—Hillel J. Kieval, author of Languages of Community
300 pp.6 x 9Illus: 31 b/w photographs
9780520228641$63.00|£53.00Hardcover
Oct 2002