Orientalism and the Figure of the Jew

Jeffrey S. Librett is Professor of German at the University of Oregon.

• List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Orientalism as Typology, or How to Disavow the Modern Abyss 1 Part I. Historicist Orientalism: Transcendental Historiography from Johann Gottfried Herder to Arthur Schopenhauer 1. Ordering Chaos: The Orient in J. G. Herder's Teleological Historicism 2. Figuralizing the Oriental, Literalizing the Jew: From Letter to Spirit in Friedrich Schlegel's On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians 3. Goethe's Orientalizing Moment (I): "Notes and Treatises for the Better Understanding of the West-East Divan" 4. Goethe's Orientalizing Moment (II): The Poetry of the West-East Divan Excursus: Jussuph and the Question of Anti-Semitism in Goethe 5. Thresholds of History: India and the Limits of Europe in Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of History Excursus: The History of Panic-Angst und Notgeschrei 6. Taking Up Groundlessness, Fulfilling Fulfillment: Schopenhauer's Orientalist Metaphysics between Indians and Jews Part II. How Not to Appropriate Orientalist Typology: Some Modernist Responses to Historicism 7. Dialectical Development or Partial Construction? Martin Buber and Franz Kafka Excursus on a Brief Excursus-Concerning Babel 8. The Dreamwork of History: Orientalism and Originary Disfiguration in Freud's Moses and Monotheism Excursus: Edward Said and the Identity of the Different, or Freud in Palestine Conclusion: For an Abstract Historiography of the Nonexistent Present Notes Index

"In this sweeping study reaching from Baruch Spinoza to Edward Said, Jeffrey Librett uncovers with superb erudition the driving force of Orientalism: the panicked disavowal of the 'crisis of foundations' in Western modernity. Librett's astute analyses of transcendental-historicist texts from Herder to Schopenhauer are followed by fresh interpretations of critical modernist responses by Kafka and Freud. A groundbreaking critique of Said's critique of Freud and a keen analysis of the vicissitudes of contemporary German Orientalism complement this 'anamnestic journey.' The 19th century historicist appropriation of typology is shown to culminate disastrously in the Semitic/Aryan split, only to be shadowed by the split between the 'good' and the 'bad Semite' - an antagonism that haunts international politics in ruinous ways to this day. Librett's study is of great relevance for scholars of German philosophy and culture, Middle-Eastern Studies, Religious Studies and Psychoanalysis, and for any scholar concerned about the conflict in the Middle-East." -- -Elisabeth Weber University of California, Santa Barbara "This magisterially researched and probingly argued study opens a completely new and potentially groundbreaking perspective on Orientalism. In impeccably executed detail, it demonstrates that what has long been seen as a binary opposition between East and West has in fact relied since its inception on a triangular dynamic between three shifting poles: not simply Occident vs. Orient, but the Occident, the Orient, and the Jew. Orientalism and the Figure of the Jew will be of interest to a wide range of scholars." -- -David Martyn Macalester College