Dana Mihailescu is associate professor of English/American studies at the University of Bucharest, Romania.

Jewish American literature may be considered the first ethnic literature to have achieved great influence in the United States, in which hyphenated and multiple identities proliferate. Dana Mihailescu’s Eastern European Jewish American Narratives, 1890–1930 offers a timely new critical contribution by studying the plural and often shifting character of Jewish identity among immigrants in a new land, deepening our understanding of the Jewish historical background of Jewish-American literature. Mihailescu studies not only narratives of immigrant writers of Orthodox background from the Russian Pale, as has been the tendency in earlier studies, but also provides a comparative study of other less well-known Romanian immigrant writers, coming from a more progressive milieu. She studies how all these authors forged differing and complex hybrid Jewish-American modern identities through the ethical reconfiguration of Old World traditional norms. She also points out the tension in Jewish assimilation along gendered lines, where female writers criticized the gender bias of Judaism, never questioned by the male writers, some of whom, in turn, were caught in unconscious clinging to Eastern European traditions.

• Introduction Part I: Power Fields, Struggles for Recognition, and the Birth of Jewish American Contingent Identity1. Preliminary Considerations 2. Eastern European Traditions in Early Twentieth Century Jewish American Narratives 3. American Traditions between Temptations and Traps: Towards a Contingent Identity Part II: Jewishness, Responsibility, and Vulnerability in Early Twentieth Century America: Writing an Ethics out of Contingency 4. Stances of Ethical Agency out of Contingency 5. Human Socialities between Struggles for Recognition and Ethical Responsibility Conclusion

Dana Mihailescu is associate professor of English/American studies at the University of Bucharest, Romania.

Jewish American literature may be considered the first ethnic literature to have achieved great influence in the United States, in which hyphenated and multiple identities proliferate. Dana Mihailescu’s Eastern European Jewish American Narratives, 1890–1930 offers a timely new critical contribution by studying the plural and often shifting character of Jewish identity among immigrants in a new land, deepening our understanding of the Jewish historical background of Jewish-American literature. Mihailescu studies not only narratives of immigrant writers of Orthodox background from the Russian Pale, as has been the tendency in earlier studies, but also provides a comparative study of other less well-known Romanian immigrant writers, coming from a more progressive milieu. She studies how all these authors forged differing and complex hybrid Jewish-American modern identities through the ethical reconfiguration of Old World traditional norms. She also points out the tension in Jewish assimilation along gendered lines, where female writers criticized the gender bias of Judaism, never questioned by the male writers, some of whom, in turn, were caught in unconscious clinging to Eastern European traditions.

• Introduction Part I: Power Fields, Struggles for Recognition, and the Birth of Jewish American Contingent Identity1. Preliminary Considerations 2. Eastern European Traditions in Early Twentieth Century Jewish American Narratives 3. American Traditions between Temptations and Traps: Towards a Contingent Identity Part II: Jewishness, Responsibility, and Vulnerability in Early Twentieth Century America: Writing an Ethics out of Contingency 4. Stances of Ethical Agency out of Contingency 5. Human Socialities between Struggles for Recognition and Ethical Responsibility Conclusion

Dana Mihailescu is associate professor of English/American studies at the University of Bucharest, Romania.

Jewish American literature may be considered the first ethnic literature to have achieved great influence in the United States, in which hyphenated and multiple identities proliferate. Dana Mihailescu’s Eastern European Jewish American Narratives, 1890–1930 offers a timely new critical contribution by studying the plural and often shifting character of Jewish identity among immigrants in a new land, deepening our understanding of the Jewish historical background of Jewish-American literature. Mihailescu studies not only narratives of immigrant writers of Orthodox background from the Russian Pale, as has been the tendency in earlier studies, but also provides a comparative study of other less well-known Romanian immigrant writers, coming from a more progressive milieu. She studies how all these authors forged differing and complex hybrid Jewish-American modern identities through the ethical reconfiguration of Old World traditional norms. She also points out the tension in Jewish assimilation along gendered lines, where female writers criticized the gender bias of Judaism, never questioned by the male writers, some of whom, in turn, were caught in unconscious clinging to Eastern European traditions.

• Introduction Part I: Power Fields, Struggles for Recognition, and the Birth of Jewish American Contingent Identity1. Preliminary Considerations 2. Eastern European Traditions in Early Twentieth Century Jewish American Narratives 3. American Traditions between Temptations and Traps: Towards a Contingent Identity Part II: Jewishness, Responsibility, and Vulnerability in Early Twentieth Century America: Writing an Ethics out of Contingency 4. Stances of Ethical Agency out of Contingency 5. Human Socialities between Struggles for Recognition and Ethical Responsibility Conclusion