Jews in the American Academy, 1900-1940: The Dynamics of Intellectual Assimilation - Hardcover

Klingenstein, Susanne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300049412 ISBN 13: 9780300049411

Publisher: Yale Univ Pr, 1991

Synopsis

An account of the first Jewish professors of humanities in US universities. Tracing their experiences, it reveals how Ivy League colleges in the early 20th century opened their doors to Jewish intellectuals and indicates how this integration transformed the thinking of these Jewish professors.

About this title

About the Author:

Susanne Klingenstein is associate professor of writing and humanistic studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The author of Jews in the American Academy, 1900-1940 (forthcoming in paper from Syracuse University Press, see below), she has contributed many articles on American Jewish literature and culture to scholarly journals.

From Kirkus Reviews:

An absorbing study of American Jews who first broke the ``color line'' at the humanities faculties of Ivy League colleges. The Jewish Jackie Robinsons of this ``league'' were foreigners hired at Harvard for their linguistic abilities. They included men like Judah Monis (1683-1764), who was appointed instructor of Hebrew (then celebrated as the ``Mother Tongue'') suspiciously close to his conversion to Christianity, and the talented polyglot Leo Wiener (1862-1939), a Russian agnostic. Klingenstein is herself a foreign-born instructor at Harvard (and this book was her doctoral dissertation at the Univ. of Heidelberg), but her command of Jewish thought and learning seems vastly superior to that of any of her subjects here. Her insightful preface on Jewish concepts of freedom would likely sound unfamiliar to C.C.N.Y. philosophy professors Horace Kallen and Morris Cohen, and to Columbia men-of- letters like Ludwig Lewisohn and Lionel Trilling. According to Klingenstein, Lewisohn was less self-hating than other Jewish academics of his generation, but he clearly stated that he was only Jewish by ``name and physiognomy.'' Where Klingenstein cannot offer an authentic clash of cultures, her subjects engage in spirited debates, such as the ``Zionism is tribalism'' issue. Well written and researched--though more about socioeconomic than intellectual Jewish gains. (Twelve illustrations--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale Univ Pr
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0300049412
• ISBN 13: 9780300049411
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248