Judaism Musical and Unmusical
256 pages
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39 halftones
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6 x 9
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© 2007
Modernity gave rise to a Jewish consciousness that has increasingly distanced itself from the sacred in favor of worldliness and secularity. Judaism Musical and Unmusical traces the formulation of this secular Jewishness from its Enlightenment roots through the twentieth century to explore the infinite variations of modern Jewish experience in Central Europe and beyond.
Engaging the work of such figures as Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Charlotte Salomon, Arnaldo Momigliano, Leonard Bernstein, and Daniel Libeskind, Michael Steinberg shows how modern Jews advanced cosmopolitanism and multiplicity by helping to loosen—whether by choice or by necessity—the ties that bind any culture to accounts of its origins. In the process, Steinberg composes a mosaic of texts and events, often distant from one another in time and place, that speak to his theme of musicality. As both a literal value and a metaphorical one, musicality opens the possibility of a fusion of aesthetics and analysis—a coupling analogous to European modernity’s twin concerns of art and politics.
Engaging the work of such figures as Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Charlotte Salomon, Arnaldo Momigliano, Leonard Bernstein, and Daniel Libeskind, Michael Steinberg shows how modern Jews advanced cosmopolitanism and multiplicity by helping to loosen—whether by choice or by necessity—the ties that bind any culture to accounts of its origins. In the process, Steinberg composes a mosaic of texts and events, often distant from one another in time and place, that speak to his theme of musicality. As both a literal value and a metaphorical one, musicality opens the possibility of a fusion of aesthetics and analysis—a coupling analogous to European modernity’s twin concerns of art and politics.
Contents
List of illustrations
Introduction
1 The House and the World: On Jewish Experience and the Critique of Identity
2 The Family Romances of Sigmund Freud
3 Broken Vessels: Aestheticism and Modernity in Henry James and Walter Benjamin
4 Walter Benjamin and Eduard Fuchs: The Collector as Allegorist
5 Charlotte Salomon: History, Memory, Modernism
6 Arnaldo Momigliano and the Facts
7 Leonard Bernstein in Vienna
8 Grounds Zero: History, Memory, and the New Sacredness in Berlin and Beyond
Afterword
Of Jews, Music, and Scholarship
Notes
Index
Introduction
1 The House and the World: On Jewish Experience and the Critique of Identity
2 The Family Romances of Sigmund Freud
3 Broken Vessels: Aestheticism and Modernity in Henry James and Walter Benjamin
4 Walter Benjamin and Eduard Fuchs: The Collector as Allegorist
5 Charlotte Salomon: History, Memory, Modernism
6 Arnaldo Momigliano and the Facts
7 Leonard Bernstein in Vienna
8 Grounds Zero: History, Memory, and the New Sacredness in Berlin and Beyond
Afterword
Of Jews, Music, and Scholarship
Notes
Index
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