The impossible Jew : identity and the reconstruction of Jewish American literary history Introduction: The school of criticism I wouldnt be caught dead in: a polemic on theorizing the field 1. Toward a critical semitism: on not answering the Jewish question in literary studies 2. Against the dialectic of nation: Abraham Cahan and desires spectral Jew 3. The negative desire of Jewish representation; or why were the New York intellectuals Jewish 4. Why Jews arent normal: the unrepresentable future of Philip Roths the counterlife 5. 9 11s stealthy Jews: Jonathan Safran Foer and the irrepresentation of identity