Futurity
Subtitle: contemporary literature and the quest for the past
By: Amir Eshel
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Chicago; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 355
ISBN-13: 9780226924953; 9780226924960
Subjects: German literature; History in literature; Hebrew literature; History and criticism
Description: "Critical writing on literature and the arts is burdened by the weight of the past. In this book, Amir Eshel suggests that this retrospective gaze has trapped us in a search for reason in the madness of the twentieth century's catastrophes at the expense of literature's prospective vision. Considering several key literary works, Eshel argues in Futurity that by grappling with watershed events of modernity, these works display a future-centric engagement with the past that opens up the present to new political, cultural, and ethical possibilities-what he calls futurity." -- Front jacket flap
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Coming to terms with the future: German literature in search of the past; title: Writing the unsaid: Hebrew literature and the question of Palestinian flight and expulsion; title: Futurity and action.