Borrowed Voices

Writing and Racial Ventriloquism in the Jewish American Imagination

Author: Jennifer Glaser
ISBN: 9780813577395

In the decades following World War II, many American Jews sought to downplay their difference, as a means of assimilating into Middle America. Yet a significant minority, including many prominent Jewish writers and intellectuals, clung to their ethnic difference, using it to register dissent with the status quo and act as spokespeople for non-white America.    In this provocative book, Jennifer Glaser examines how racial ventriloquism became a hallmark of Jewish-American fiction, as Jewish writers asserted that their own ethnicity enabled them to speak for other minorities. Rather than simply condemning this racial ventriloquism as a form of cultural appropriation or commending it as an act of empathic imagination, Borrowed Voices offers a nuanced analysis of the technique, judiciously assessing both its limitations and its potential benefits.  Glaser considers how the practice of racial ventriloquism has changed over time, examining the books of many well-known writers, including B

Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Publish Date: 2016

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Jewish, Literary Criticism / Modern / 20th Century, Social Science / Ethnic Studies / General

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Cross-Cultural Center (Location: Jewish Studies (JWSH))