| A Scholar's Tale: Intellectual Journey of a Displaced Child of Europe Contributor(s): Hartman, Geoffrey (Author) |
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ISBN: 0823228320 ISBN-13: 9780823228324 Publisher: Fordham University Press OUR PRICE: $76.00 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: October 2007 Annotation: In this intellectual memoir and unusual autobiographical essay, Geoffrey Hartman, a refugee from Nazi Germany at the age of 9, and who left England six years later to join his mother in America, describes his early education, uncanny sense of vocation, and then his development as a literary scholar and cultural critic. Having published his first book in 1954, he treats us to a "biobibliography" of his engagement with the major trends in literary criticism over the next fifty years. He covers the exciting period at Yale handled so controversially by the media, and gives us vivid analytic portraits of, in particular, Harold Bloom, Paul de Man, and Jacques Derrida. Many other European as well as American critics pass through these pages. Of special interest will be Hartman's turn to Holocaust Studies and his co-founding of the first major Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. But he also describes his deepening interest in literary criticism as a form of literature, and the relevance to that interest of the exegetical methods of Midrash. He recalls the situation of Jewish teachers at Yale in 1955, when he began his career, to when he helped to establish the university's Judaic Studies program. All this is set into the framework of his gradual self-awareness of what scholarship implies, and how his displacements strengthened a wish to mediate between the European and American literary-critical scene. Those looking for a rich and intelligible account of these last fifty years of combative literary studies, still crucial to what is happening, will want to read Geoffrey Hartman's unapologetic scholar's tale. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Semiotics & Theory - Biography & Autobiography | Literary Figures - Biography & Autobiography | Personal Memoirs |
| Dewey: B |
| LCCN: 2007029313 |
| Physical Information: 0.78" H x 5.9" W x 8.44" (0.83 lbs) 208 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: For more than fifty years, Geoffrey Hartman has been a pivotal figure in the humanities. In his first book, in 1954, he helped establish the study of Romanticism as key to the problems of modernity. Later, his writings were crucial to the explosive developments in literary theory in the late seventies, and he was a pioneer in Jewish studies, trauma studies, and studies of the Holocaust. At Yale, he was a founder of its Judaic Studies program, as well as of the first major video archive for Holocaust testimonies.Generations of students have benefited from Hartman's generosity, his penetrating and incisive questioning, the wizardry of his close reading, and his sense that the work of a literary scholar, no less than that of an artist, is a creative act. All these qualities shine forth in this intellectual memoir, which will stand as his autobiography. Hartman describes his early education, uncanny sense of vocation, and development as a literary scholar and cultural critic. He looks back at how his career was influenced by his experience, at the age of nine, of being a refugee from Nazi Germany in the Kindertransport. He spent the next six years at school in England, where he developed his love of English literature and the English countryside, before leaving to join his mother in America.Hartman treats us to a biobibliographyof his engagements with the major trends in literary criticism. He covers the exciting period at Yale handled so controversially by the media and gives us vivid portraits, in particular, of Harold Bloom, Paul de Man, and Jacques Derrida.SEND GEOFFREY COVER COPY All this is set in the context of his gradual self-awareness of what scholarship implies and how his personal displacements strengthened his calling to mediate between European and American literary cultures. Anyone looking for a rich, intelligible account of the last half-century of combative literary studies will want to read Geoffrey Hartman's unapologetic scholar's tale. |
Contributor Bio(s): Hartman, Geoffrey: - GEOFFREY HARTMAN is Sterling Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at Yale and Project Director of its Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. His most recent books are The Geoffrey Hartman Reader (Fordham), winner of the Truman Capote Prize for Literary Criticism in Honor of Newton Arvin; Scars of the Spirit; The Longest Shadow; and a new edition of Criticism in the Wilderness. |