Figures of Conversion: "The Jewish Question" and English National Identity Contributor(s): Ragussis, Michael (Author) |
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ISBN: 0822315599 ISBN-13: 9780822315599 Publisher: Duke University Press OUR PRICE: $102.55 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: April 1995 Annotation: "I was astounded by the depth and brilliance of this book. Ragussis makes the case that the Jew for British culture has always been the defining figure of difference. His literary examples are striking, but he also shows how the changing atmosphere alters and restructures the very notion of the Jew in British cultural life. His audience, readers interested in Jewish questions and British culture, will find material and insights not to be found in any existing literature."--Sander L. Gilman, University of Chicago "This is the most stimulating and original treatment of representations of the Jew in English literature that I have ever read. It moves the discussion of images of the Jew in literature on to a new, more nuanced and intellectually challenging plane. What is important about Ragussis' work is that it links representations of the Jew in English culture to what is now a central issue for students of English history and literature: constructions of Englishness and the formation of English nationalism."--Todd M. Endelman, University of Michigan |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social |
Dewey: 305.892 |
LCCN: 94038191 |
Lexile Measure: 1590 |
Series: Post-Contemporary Interventions |
Physical Information: 1.26" H x 6.18" W x 9.16" (1.69 lbs) 352 pages |
Themes: - Cultural Region - British Isles |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: "I knew a Man, who having nothing but a summary Notion of Religion himself, and being wicked and profligate to the last Degree in his Life, made a thorough Reformation in himself, by labouring to convert a Jew." --Daniel Defoe, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719) When the hero of Defoe's novel listens skeptically to this anecdote related by a French Roman Catholic priest, he little suspects that in less than a century the conversion of the Jews would become nothing short of a national project--not in France but in England. In this book, Michael Ragussis explores the phenomenon of Jewish conversion--the subject of popular enthusiasm, public scandal, national debate, and dubbed "the English madness" by its critics--in Protestant England from the 1790s through the 1870s. |