Daniel Walden – författare

Chaim Potok was a world-class writer and scholar, a Conservative Jew who wrote from and about his tradition and the conflicts between observance and acculturation. With a plain, straightforward style, his novels were set against the moral, spiritual, and intellectual currents of the twentieth century. This collection aims to widen the lens through which we read Chaim Potok and to establish him as an authentic American writer who created unforgettable characters forging American identities for themselves while retaining their Jewish nature. The essays illuminate the central struggle in Potok’s novels, which results from a profound desire to reconcile the appeal of modernity with the pull of traditional Judaism. The volume includes a memoir by Adena Potok and ends with Chaim Potok’s “My Life as a Writer,” a speech he gave at Penn State in 1982.Aside from the editor, the contributors are Victoria Aarons, Nathan P. Devir, Jane Eisner, Susanne Klingenstein, S. Lillian Kremer, Jessica Lang, Sanford E. Marovitz, Kathryn McClymond, Hugh Nissenson, Adena Potok, and Jonathan Rosen.

This book discusses the psychological topography of Korean, Nigerian, and Indian people by exploring the counter-colonial discourse through the study of works by three writers – Yom Sang-Sop, Chinua Achebe and Salman Rushdie – counter-colonial discourse in the works of these three writers strikes back at powerful colonial discourses, Soonsik Kim successfully brings out the Third World «voice» against the colonial legacy of the West and gives readers a taste of being «the Other». This book marks a significant transition in the critical attention of Third World discourse from mere projection to subjective viewpoint.

One of America's most popular Jewish writers, Chaim Potok (b. 1929) is the author of such novels as The Chosen (1967), The Promise (1969), The Book of Lights (1981), and Davita's Harp (1985). Each of his novels explores the tension between tradition and modernity, and the clash between Jewish culture and contemporary Western civilization, which he calls ""core-to-core culture confrontation."" Although primarily known as a novelist, Potok is an ordained Conservative rabbi and a world-class Judaic scholar who has also published children's books, theological discourses, biographies, and histories. Conversations with Chaim Potok presents interviews ranging from 1976 to 1999. Potok discusses the broad range of his writing and the deep influence of non-Jewish novels-in particular, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited and James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man-on his work. Interviews bear witness to Potok's many other influences-Orthodox Jewish doctrine, Freudian psychoanalytical theory, Picasso's Guernica, and Jewish kabbalah mysticism. Though labeled an American Jewish writer, Potok argues that Flannery O'Connor should then be called an American Catholic writer and John Updike an American Protestant writer. ""In his mind,"" editor Daniel Walden writes, ""just as Faulkner was a writer focused on a particular place, Oxford, Mississippi, . . . so Potok's territory was a small section of New York City."" Potok often explores conflict in his writings and in his interviews. Strict Jewish teachings deem fiction an artifice and therefore unnecessary, yet since the age of sixteen Potok has been driven to write novels. At the root of all of these conversations is Potok's intense interest in the turmoil between Jewish culture, religion, and tradition and what he calls ""Western secular humanism."" As he discusses his work, he continually includes broader issues, such as the state of Jewish literature and art, pointing out with pride and enthusiasm his belief that Jewish culture, in the twentieth century, has finally begun to have a significant role in producing and shaping the world's art and literature. Whether discussing the finer details of Talmudic textual analysis or his period of chaplaincy during the Korean War, Potok is articulate and philosophical, bringing deep consideration into what may seem small subjects. Although his novels and histories take place primarily in the recent past, the Chaim Potok that emerges from this collection is a writer deeply rooted in the tensions of the present. Daniel Walden is Professor Emeritus of American Studies, English and Comparative Literature at Penn State University. He has written or edited several books, including On Being Jewish (1974), Twentieth Century American Jewish Writers (1984), The World of Chaim Potok (1985), and American Jewish Poets: The Roots and the Stems (1990).

CSR und Recht, das hat scheinbar wenig miteinander zu tun. CSR soll gemeinhin dort beginnen, wo Compliance aufhört. Denn es gehe nicht um die Einhaltung zwingender gesetzlicher Anforderungen, sondern um die freiwillige Übernahme weitergehender sozialer und ökologischer Verantwortung. Der Band "CSR und Recht" beschreibt spezifisch für maßgebliche Rechtsgebiete, wie zwingendes Recht, Soft Law, unternehmerische und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung zusammenspielen.Denn eine genauere Betrachtung eröffnet eine spannende Gratwanderung. Viele nationale Rechtsnormen bezwecken von vornherein den Schutz des Gemeinwohls, z.B. im Umweltrecht. Allerdings unterscheiden sich die nationalen CSR-Mindeststandards weltweit stark. Internationale CSR-Regelwerke haben rein freiwilligen Charakter. Den Unternehmen bleibt mithin weiter Spielraum bei der Ausgestaltung "ihrer" CSR. Ökonomische, ökologische und soziale Erwägungen überlagern sich dabei zunehmend. Gemeinwohlinteressen dienende Geschäftsmodelle, nachhaltige Produktion, Rohstoffverfügbarkeit, Öffentlichkeitsbild, Betriebsklima etc. wirken mehrdimensional und prägen zugleich das unternehmerische Ermessen des Managements. Sie erlangen so – mittelbar – auch rechtliche Bedeutung.

Saul Bellow and American Transcendentalism explores Saul Bellow’s moral and philosophical affinity with the writers of American transcendentalism, especially Emerson and Whitman. Its focus is on the «vintage» Bellow, or his «mature» novels, from Henderson the Rain King (1959) to The Dean’s December (1982). In these novels, Bellow highlights a moral crisis, arising from humankind’s despiritualization and dehumanization, which, he believes, is responsible for an ongoing dichotomy in the modern world. Bellow describes this as a dichotomy of the «Cleans» and the «Dirties», in the context of American culture. To rectify this dichotomy and redeem humankind from its current «death-ridden» state, Bellow and his protagonists advance a vision of life that corresponds to the transcendental vision of dialogue and «double consciousness», or coordination and balance. Like Emerson, they advocate, «The mid-world is best... A man is a golden impossibility; the line he must walk is a hair’s breadth». Comparable to Whitman, they urge the individual to «knit the knot of contrariety» and act as «an arbiter of the diverse».

In this book, the German history of The Merchant of Venice highlights the Central European detour that Shakespearean reception underwent in Hebrew and Yiddish. Such a detour, with its various discomforts, is used to penetrate a current historical and political historiography, rendering Shylock a character that remembers various languages and locations, as well as multiple alternatives for political self-definition. This complex Shakespearean character speaks in many voices and for various purposes and is the only character that can provide the missing link between two contradictory Jewish stereotypes – a persecuted and victimized underling and a merciless and violent plaintive, holding out his knife to draw blood.