Consider If This Is a Man: Primo Levi and the Figure of Ulysses

Cohen, Uri

doi:10.2979/jewisocistud.18.2.40

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…(Levi 2015,1 :109) Levi is impeded by the sight of Mount Purgatory,the highest mountain Ulysses had ever seen, but the lofty mountain, the wind comingf rom it,i ts messagei f youw ill, cannot be connected in the end to drowning, leading to the silence of Hamlet'sd ying words. Thisi sn op rince of Denmark, no revenge need be feared (Cohen 2012). What he would give his dailyb read for,l ife itself, is about connectingt he wind that came from that mountain; it is about meaning.…”

Section: Primo Levi: Between Literaturea Nd the Worldmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Levi recalls the tradition, repositioning it in the Inferno of the slaves, wheret here is no use for scholarship. Nowhereisthis more present than the celebrated chapter "The Canto of Ulysses" (Cohen 2012). Levi goes to fetch soup with Pikolo (Jean Samuel),aFrench inmate and attempts to teachh im some Italian by reciting from memory the last terza rima of Dante'sm agnificent Canto 26 (Samuel 2007).…”

Section: Primo Levi: Between Literaturea Nd the Worldmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Disseminating Jewish Literatures

Zepp¹,

Shahar²,

Fine³

et al. 2020

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This brief paper focuses on af ew methodological and practical challenges one faces when trying to introduce -or integrate -Jewishl iterature(s) into courses dedicated to modern, and especiallyearlym odern, Spanish literature.A saHispanist,r ather thanascholaro fJ ewish studies,m yphilological and pedagogic interests in Sephardic Jewry and its literary production are motivated first and foremost by the fact that they are yetanother manifestation of Hispanic culture, which, alongside morisco culture and colonial culture, reflect on our concept of "Spanishness",and, consequently, on what we consider to be part of the Spanish literaryc anon.Id eem introductory courses to be the most appropriate context to expose studentst othe existenceo fJ ewishworks and their complex relation to Spanish literature. These coursesare often students' first encounter with aliterary canon both as an abstract -debatable -concept and as ac orpus of texts, which they are expected to be familiar with by the end of the course. Thus, such courses are an opportunity to think with the studentsa bout the major questions and problems thatwould -hopefully -accompanythem through their studies, and sometimes even beyond. At the samet ime, however,the time constraint imposed by the need to cover ar elatively large amounto ft exts,a pproaches, and historical contexts, obliges us to modify our syllabi with caution.My argument is that in order to integrate Jewishliteratures into the narrative of courses introducing studentsw ith earlym odern Spanish literature, one does not need to radicallychangecourse syllabi nor dismantle the very canon of Golden Agel iterature. Rather,one needs to introduce minimal changes in the list of works studied -i. e., add one Jewish work, or selections thereof -and gesture, as one teaches other canonical works,t owards the story of Hebrew,J ewish, and converso literatures -threed ifferent concepts with which studentsm ust be acquainted. The same holds, of course,for the Muslim culturaland literaryheritage of the Iberian Peninsula and for the underrepresented morisco literatureo ft he sixteenth century.G iven, however,t he focus of the present volume on Jewish and modernl iteratures,Iwill limit myself to Jewish and converso literature.OpenAccess.

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Section: Primo Levi: Between Literaturea Nd the Worldmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Primo Levi: Between Literaturea Nd the Worldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disseminating Jewish Literatures

Zepp¹,

Shahar²,

Fine³

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Dialogical Memory and Immemorial Poetics: The Ethical Imperatives of Holocaust Literature

Remington

2021

Humanities

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Drawing from Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophical ethics and Paul Celan’s dialogical poetics, this article interrogates the impossible memorial and ethical demands that literary responses to the Holocaust place upon their readers. While Levinas reveals our position as summoned to radical responsibility, Celan shows us how that responsibility plays out in the form of ethical reading. By attending to the imperative commands found in Celan’s longest poem, “Engführung”, this article demonstrates how Holocaust literature memorializes the Shoah through an invocation of Levinasian ethics and the concept of the immemorial—that which exceeds memory. Following the discussion of Levinas, Celan, and “Engführung”, I turn to Primo Levi’s “Shema”, a paradigmatic text that likewise directly challenges us, calling us into question as readers during the moment of reading and demanding an attentiveness to the text that proves beyond our ability to deliver. Throughout, I aim to show how dialogical memory enables us to better comprehend the ethical burden we encounter in the literary texts of the Holocaust.

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Consider If This Is a Man: Primo Levi and the Figure of Ulysses

Cited by 2 publications

References 2 publications

Disseminating Jewish Literatures

Disseminating Jewish Literatures

Dialogical Memory and Immemorial Poetics: The Ethical Imperatives of Holocaust Literature

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