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- Title
Israeli Literature and the Time of "post-post-Zionism".
- Authors
Nir, Oded
- Abstract
In this essay, I argue that contemporary Israeli literature possesses a more "advanced" historical imaginary than that of contemporary "post-post-Zionist" Israeli historiography, and I relate this gap to the neoliberalization of the Israeli economy. I begin by arguing that contemporary literature's historical imaginary marks a departure from its 80s and 90s postmodern predecessors. I show that this departure is evident in contemporary Israeli literature's explicit recognition of an inability to relate subjective experience to larger history. This recognition constitutes a dialectical overcoming of Israeli postmodernism's playful dismantling of the national historical narrative. I then argue that Israeli "post-post-Zionist" historiography constitutes an entry into a postmodern phase, in contrast to literature's departure from postmodernism. Thus, I argue that literature seems to be "ahead" of historiography, in terms of each field's temporal imagination. I conclude this essay by suggesting that one can explain this gap by taking into account the effects of Israeli neoliberalization on each field. While state-supported and owned print industry and presses were privatized early in Israel, the privatization of higher education started later, and is still taking place. I thus suggest that the reason literature seems "ahead" of academic work is a result of the stronger and more immediate coupling of literary institutions with the capitalist market than the more mediated relation between the capitalist market and the academy.
- Subjects
ISRAELI literature; POST-Zionism; ISRAELI authors; JEWISH identity; HEBREW literature
- Publication
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature & Culture: A Web Journal, 2019, Vol 21, Issue 2, p1
- ISSN
1481-4374
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.7771/1481-4374.3577