Postmodern Love in the Contemporary Jewish Imagination

Efraim Sicher is a professor of English and comparative literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel. In 2020 he was a research fellow at the Israeli Institute of Advanced Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has published widely in modern Jewish studies and has edited the short stories of Isaak Babel in Russian, English, and Hebrew. Among his most recent books are Babel in Context (2012); Under Postcolonial Eyes: Figuring the "Jew" in Contemporary British Writing (with Linda Weinhouse, 2012); Race Color Identity: Discourses of the "Jew" in the Twenty-First Century (as editor, 2013); The Jew’s Daughter: A Cultural History of a Conversion Narrative (2017); and Reenvisioning Jewish Identities: Reflections on Contemporary Culture in Israel and the Diaspora (2021).

"Through finely tuned close readings, Sicher probes deeply into Jewish identity in a postmodern world. Both learned and caring, it should be welcomed by all as a serious exploration of some of the major challenges facing Jews today." Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Indiana University, USA"… sensitive and provocative readings of contemporary Jewish fiction. In examining spatial and temporal sites of identity-formation from a global and transnational perspective, this important study presents an original approach to the construction of Jewishness in the literary imagination." Victoria Aarons, Trinity University, USA"He [Sicher] does close readings of the texts he discusses and examines recurring themes and motifs, like Jewish-Arab love, the lover’s body as nation-state, and post-Zionism . . . Sicher illuminates literary histories, identifies intellectual and creative antecedents, and proposes comparisons with contemporaries for each of his case studies . . . in Postmodern Love, we read summaries and analyses of a dizzying array of Jewish novels." Karen E. H. Skinazi in Modern Philology, volume 121, number 2 (2023)"In Postmodern Love in the Contemporary Jewish Imagination, Sicher casts a wide net in discussing twenty-first century Jewish literary texts. The book considers the interplay in Jewish literature between postmodernism, lost faith, questions of identity, shifts in thinking on Jewish spaces, and the existential uncertainty that hinges on post-Holocaust anguish." Shana Rosenblatt Mauer in Journal of Jewish Identities, issue 17, number 2 (2024)

• Introduction 1. All You Need is Love? 2. From Auschwitz to Yavneh 3. Body and Nation 4. Transgression and Return 5. Destroying Israel 6. The Afterlife of Love Coda Bibliography