Aaron Tillman is associate professor of English and director of the Honors Program at Newbury College.

Aaron Tillman's Magical American Jew: the Enigma of Difference in Contemporary Jewish American Short Fiction and Film is a worthy contribution to our understanding of the workings of Jewish identity within a number of canonical as well as lesser known [works]. . . . Tillman is skilled at reading the interplay of belonging in the United States and being an outsider at the same time, even in texts by writers and performers who are deeply assimilated into American culture. . . . Tillman does present a number of convincing and thought-provoking readings within this framework. I believe that students, teachers, and scholars of Jewish American identity and culture will find Tillman’s contribution highly useful.

• IntroductionMagical American Jew: The Enigma of Difference in Contemporary Jewish American Short Fiction and FilmChapter 1Postmodern Neurotic: Jewish American Excess and the Narrative Body inWoody Allen’s Annie HallChapter 2Presuming the Dominant Gaze: Spirits of Shame in Cynthia Ozick’s“Levitation”Chapter 3Collecting Pain: Masochism, Identity, and Archiving Trauma Testimony inMelvin Jules Bukiet’s “The Library of Moloch”Chapter 4“‘Jewish, Here in the Back’: Magical and Comical Discord between Religiosity and Ethnicity in Nathan Englander’s ‘The Gilgul of Park Avenue’ and Steve Stern’s ‘The Tale of a Kite’”Chapter 5“Through the Rube Goldberg Crazy Straw”: Ethnic Mobility and NarcissisticFantasy in Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is MagicConclusionPortraying the Impossible: Franz Kafka and the Magical Influence of an Enigmatic Artist

Aaron Tillman is associate professor of English and director of the Honors Program at Newbury College.

Aaron Tillman's Magical American Jew: the Enigma of Difference in Contemporary Jewish American Short Fiction and Film is a worthy contribution to our understanding of the workings of Jewish identity within a number of canonical as well as lesser known [works]. . . . Tillman is skilled at reading the interplay of belonging in the United States and being an outsider at the same time, even in texts by writers and performers who are deeply assimilated into American culture. . . . Tillman does present a number of convincing and thought-provoking readings within this framework. I believe that students, teachers, and scholars of Jewish American identity and culture will find Tillman’s contribution highly useful.

• IntroductionMagical American Jew: The Enigma of Difference in Contemporary Jewish American Short Fiction and FilmChapter 1Postmodern Neurotic: Jewish American Excess and the Narrative Body inWoody Allen’s Annie HallChapter 2Presuming the Dominant Gaze: Spirits of Shame in Cynthia Ozick’s“Levitation”Chapter 3Collecting Pain: Masochism, Identity, and Archiving Trauma Testimony inMelvin Jules Bukiet’s “The Library of Moloch”Chapter 4“‘Jewish, Here in the Back’: Magical and Comical Discord between Religiosity and Ethnicity in Nathan Englander’s ‘The Gilgul of Park Avenue’ and Steve Stern’s ‘The Tale of a Kite’”Chapter 5“Through the Rube Goldberg Crazy Straw”: Ethnic Mobility and NarcissisticFantasy in Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is MagicConclusionPortraying the Impossible: Franz Kafka and the Magical Influence of an Enigmatic Artist