| The Anti-Journalist: Karl Kraus and Jewish Self-Fashioning in Fin-de-Siècle Europe Contributor(s): Reitter, Paul (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 022675457X ISBN-13: 9780226754574 Publisher: University of Chicago Press OUR PRICE: $39.60 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 2020 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Religion | Judaism - General - Literary Criticism | European - German - History | Europe - Austria & Hungary |
| Dewey: 838.912 |
| Physical Information: 0.61" H x 6" W x 9" (0.89 lbs) 256 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In turn-of-the-century Vienna, Karl Kraus created a bold new style of media criticism, penning incisive satires that elicited both admiration and outrage. Kraus's spectacularly hostile critiques often focused on his fellow Jewish journalists, which brought him a reputation as the quintessential self-hating Jew. The Anti-Journalist overturns this view with unprecedented force and sophistication, showing how Kraus's criticisms form the center of a radical model of German-Jewish self-fashioning, and how that model developed in concert with Kraus's modernist journalistic style. Paul Reitter's study of Kraus's writings situates them in the context of fin-de-si cle German-Jewish intellectual society. He argues that rather than stemming from anti-Semitism, Kraus's attacks constituted an innovative critique of mainstream German-Jewish strategies for assimilation. Marshalling three of the most daring German-Jewish authors--Kafka, Scholem, and Benjamin--Reitter explains their admiration for Kraus's project and demonstrates his influence on their own notions of cultural authenticity. The Anti-Journalist is at once a new interpretation of a fascinating modernist oeuvre and a heady exploration of an important stage in the history of German-Jewish thinking about identity. |