ToC: World Literature Today 89.3-4 (2015); special section: New Voices in Contemporary Hebrew Literature

Cohen, Jessica, Adriana X. Jacobs, and Adam Rovner, eds. World Literature Today 89.3-4 (2015). Special Section: New Hebrew Writing

Prose, Poetry, and the Heresy of Normalcy: New Voices in Contemporary Hebrew Literature (pp. 60-63)
Jessica Cohen , Adriana X. Jacobs and Adam Rovner

Alas, Baghdad Sits Solitary (pp. 64-65)
Almog Behar and Translated by Lisa Katz

Rock, Paper (pp. 66-72)
Tomer Gardi and Translated by Jessica Cohen

To Jaffa (pp. 73-75)
Ayman Sikseck and Translated by Evan Fallenberg

Four Poems (pp. 76-77)
Mei-Tal Nadler and Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back

Helping Young Writers Find Their Voice: A Conversation with Dory Manor (pp. 78-81)
Adriana X. Jacobs, Translated by Adam Rovner and Adriana X. Jacobs

Nine Fictions (pp. 82-83)
Daniel Oz and Translated by Jessica Cohen

Screw You, Zamenhof (pp. 84-85)
Yiftach Ashkenazi and Translated by Adam Rovner

Book Week (p. 86)
Raveh Sagie and Translated by Daniella Zamir

Four Poems (p. 87)
Yaakov Biton and Translated by Yosefa Raz and Translated by Shaul Setter

Three Poems (pp. 88-89)
Tahel Frosh and Translated by Adriana X. Jacobs

The Sounds of Memory in Writing: A Conversation with Ronit Matalon (pp. 90-93)
Dinah Assouline Stillman and Translated by Dinah Assouline Stillman

Five Poems (pp. 94-95)
Saar Yachin and Translated by Alexandra Zelman-Doring

Mosquito (pp. 96-98)
Roy Chen and Translated by Jessica Cohen

Master of the Short Story (an excerpt) (pp. 99-101)
Maya Arad and Translated by Jessica Cohen

Readers’ Reports (pp. 102-105)
Yael Neeman and Translated by Jessica Cohen

New Article:Miccoli, Family, Nation and Egyptian Jewish Past in Israeli Literature

Miccoli, Dario. “Another History: Family, Nation and the Remembrance of the Egyptian Jewish Past in Contemporary Israeli Literature.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 13.3 (2014): 321-39.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14725886.2014.950124

 

Abstract

In this article I will focus on how Egyptian Jews who migrated to Israel after 1948 and their descendants remember Egypt and how they situate themselves vis-à-vis Israeli society and culture. I will base my analysis on three semi-autobiographical novels published between 2003 and 2011 by Israeli writers of Egyptian descent belonging to three subsequent generations: Baderekh la’itztadion by Yitzhak Gormezano Goren, Kol tze‘adenu by Ronit Matalon, and Yolanda by Moshe Sakal. By analysing specific passages from these books, I will argue that even after the decline of the Jewish presence in Egypt in the 1950s, the cultural and social worlds to which their families belonged did not vanish completely but, rather, struggled for survival at a very intimate level. This ultimately produced a multifaceted archive in which the written narrative of the family’s past became an alternative homeland where historical memories and fictional details are inextricably blended.

–

 

New Article: Mendelson-Maoz, Borders, Territory, and Sovereignty in the Works of Contemporary Israeli Women Writers

Mendelson-Maoz, Adia. “Borders, Territory, and Sovereignty in the Works of Contemporary Israeli Women Writers.” Women’s Studies 43.6 (2014): 788-822.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00497878.2014.921511

 

 

Excerpt

The works of both Matalon and Govrin offer an unusual aesthetic, ethical, and female option, in regard to the questions of territory and sovereignty. In choosing the rhizome model, in which nomads create open spaces, throw bridges over borders, and enable flexibility in the subject’s never-ending becoming, both authors provide a revolutionary angle on representations of the Israeli society, the Occupation and the Intifada in Israeli literature. Because of the revolutionary nature of their gaze, and its implication, which threaten the core of political and gendered power, this option is doomed to failure. And so alongside the radical option, these works also propose a realistic view that portrays how the female and ethical alternative is crushed and threatened with violence. Ultimately, the release of sovereignty and possession cannot succeed in a place where men thirst for war, a place where weapons persist on assaulting Jerusalem again and again, rather than leave it fallow.

 

 

 

 

 

Dissertation: Amihay, The Imagetext Turn in the Hebrew Novel

Amihay, Ofra. Migrating Images: The Imagetext Turn in the Hebrew Novel. New York University, 2014.

 

URL: http://search.proquest.com/docview/1518939613

 

Abstract

This dissertation examines the effect of twentieth-century “new media” models on literature, in the form of the late twentieth-century wave of literary works in which visual images play a central poetic role. Demarcating this body of works as an independent cultural turn, I label this “the imagetext turn” thus following two groundbreaking terms coined by W. J. T. Mitchell, “the pictorial turn” and “imagetext.” Based on philosophical discussions regarding the egalitarianism behind text and image hybrids (Benjamin, Rancière, Mitchell), and theories of the democratic nature of the novel (Auerbach, Lukács, Bakhtin) and photography (Sontag, Barthes, Azoulay), I focus on the marriage of novels and photographs. The case study for this exploration is three contemporary Israeli novelists: Yoel Hoffmann, Ronit Matalon, and Michal Govrin. Following a survey of the approach towards the visual image in Modern Hebrew literature, I identify their works as comprising the “imagetext turn” in Hebrew literature while marking their importance within a general literary development, primarily through a comparison to W. G. Sebald’s novels. My study of Hoffmann analyzes the web of Others in his novels through the photographic mechanism of the negative, suggesting the juxtaposition of text and photographs in How Do You Do Dolores echoes the Other behind text, place, and language in all his work. In my analysis of Matalon I discuss the double role photographs play in Matalon’s pursuit of postcolonial ideas in The One Facing Us, operating both as “portable roots” and as “poetic immigrants,” thus offering a subversive reading of reality that undermines nostalgia. Finally I show how through an intricate combination of narrative and visual images Govrin creates in Snapshots a literary representation of both the ideals and the blind spots of the 1990s left-wing movement of secular return to Jewish sources in Israel.

Subject: Comparative literature; Middle Eastern literature; Judaic studies

Classification: 0295: Comparative literature; 0315: Middle Eastern literature; 0751: Judaic studies

Identifier / keyword: Language, literature and linguistics, Social sciences, Hebrew literature, Govrin, Michal, Photography, Matalon, Ronit, Sebald, W. G., Hoffmann, Yoel

Number of pages: 308

Publication year: 2014

Degree date: 2014

School code: 0146

Source: DAI-A 75/07(E), Jan 2015

Place of publication: Ann Arbor

Country of publication: United States

ISBN: 9781303805424

Advisor: Feldman, Yael

Committee member: Hirsch, Marianne; Mann, Barbara E.; Engel, David; Kaplan, Marion

University/institution: New York University

Department: Hebrew and Judaic Studies

University location: United States — New York

Degree: Ph.D.

Source type: Dissertations & Theses

Language: English

Document type: Dissertation/Thesis

Dissertation/thesis number: 3614848

ProQuest document ID: 1518939613