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Old Testament Realism in the Writings of Erich Auerbach

James I. Porter

in Jews and the Ends of Theory

This chapter studies the work of the German literary critic Erich Auerbach, who wrote in response to the historical upheaval of the mid-twentieth century as a form of historical engagement. In his ... More

This chapter studies the work of the German literary critic Erich Auerbach, who wrote in response to the historical upheaval of the mid-twentieth century as a form of historical engagement. In his work, Auerbach endeavors to portray the evolution of historical consciousness in the West and the discovery of the human and social worlds it yielded. He reflects on this evolution in relating the narrative of realism. In this account, realism is not a literary genre, but rather the evolving recognition of human consciousness of its own conditions, the growing awareness, that is, that reality and the real inhere in the sensuous, the mundane, and the human. At the center of this narrative, Auerbach places Judaism and its heritage rather than Christianity. For Auerbach, history and historical consciousness first appear in the Jewish biblical stories, which provide in turn the structure and the framework for all subsequent expressions of historical thought and experience.Less

Humanism, Territory, and Techniques of Trouble

Andrew N. Rubin

in Archives of Authority: Empire, Culture, and the Cold War

This chapter examines the dimensions of Edward Said's critical writing. In spite of numerous attempts to define and identify an overarching methodology that can be traced throughout Said's some ... More

This chapter examines the dimensions of Edward Said's critical writing. In spite of numerous attempts to define and identify an overarching methodology that can be traced throughout Said's some twenty-five books, few have successfully, or at the very least convincingly, identified a method that endures throughout his entire oeuvre. That such an intellectual, who is credited with the invention of fields like postcolonial studies and who has made a decidedly transforming contribution to the reinvention of humanism in general, has proven so elusive in this respect has to do with the changing exigencies he faced as an intellectual. At the same time, however, Said has exhibited a lasting affinity with a range of key figures, intellectuals, and critics—most notably Erich Auerbach (1892–1957), a scholar of classical and philological training.Less

Force and Justice: Auerbach's Pascal

Jane O. Newman

in Political Theology and Early Modernity

This chapter shows how scholarly work on political theology in post-World War I Germany enacted and enabled resistance to the Nazi state. The focus is on Auerbach's shifting engagement with Pascal, ... More

This chapter shows how scholarly work on political theology in post-World War I Germany enacted and enabled resistance to the Nazi state. The focus is on Auerbach's shifting engagement with Pascal, beginning with his 1933 monograph, The French Audience in Seventeenth-Century France, and continuing up through his 1941 essay, “The Triumph of Evil.” It is argued that Auerbach initially saw Pascal as part of a defanged intelligentsia produced by what he calls de-Christianization, the separation of the City of God from the City of Man that leaves humans in a world of force with no recourse to justice. But as he was rendered an increasingly passive political actor by the Nazi regime, Auerbach came to see Pascal making an argument for the necessary, if also unpredictable, intrusion of the City of God into the world of human force through the figure of the just individual who resists temporal injustice. Moreover, at issue for Auerbach was the Kulturkampf—the attempt before World War I to create a politically unified Germany through German Lutheranism—and its afterlife in Nazi Germany. The very opposite of a Schmittian version of political theology in which theological concepts are embodied in the person of the sovereign, for Auerbach political theology served as a means by which he could give account of himself and of intellectual activity in mid twentieth-century Europe.Less

The Figure in the Fulfillment: Erich Auerbach

John David Dawson

in Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity

This chapter introduces Erich Auerbach, a Romance philologist and a literary historian. The discussion first examines the concepts of figural relation and figurative subversion, where Auerbach states ... More

This chapter introduces Erich Auerbach, a Romance philologist and a literary historian. The discussion first examines the concepts of figural relation and figurative subversion, where Auerbach states that readers of the Bible should not allow meanings to replace the distinctive graphic character of words. It then discusses spiritual understanding and abstraction, which is followed by the search for the origin of meaning's independence. This is followed by Dante's figural art, which Auerbach believes is based on Christian figural reading.Less

Humanism Goes East

in East West Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey

This chapter traces the origins of Auerbach's “philologist heritage,” comparing his humanist worldview with that of his contemporaries Walter Benjamin and Victor Klemperer. It situates Auerbach's ... More

This chapter traces the origins of Auerbach's “philologist heritage,” comparing his humanist worldview with that of his contemporaries Walter Benjamin and Victor Klemperer. It situates Auerbach's pre-exilic work within debates concerning the philosophy of history and inquires into the fate of humanism during the Nazi era. The schism between bourgeois and socialist humanism at the international humanist conference in Paris in 1935 is of particular relevance, for it helps us understand how humanism served as a capacious umbrella for various cultural, political, educational, and scholarly approaches.Less

Writing Mimesis in Istanbul

in East West Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey

This chapter challenges three conventional explanations concerning the originality of Auerbach's authorship: the unavailability of books, the poor state of scholarship and intellectual dialogue, and ... More

This chapter challenges three conventional explanations concerning the originality of Auerbach's authorship: the unavailability of books, the poor state of scholarship and intellectual dialogue, and detachment as a precondition for critical thinking. It shows that the catalyst for Mimesis was a vibrant intellectual circle that included prominent cultural historians like Alexander Rüstow and the tremendous weight that humanist scholarship already carried in Istanbul. Auerbach drew on the modernist trope of detachment when staging himself as an isolated intellectual in exile. The chapter focuses on a hitherto unknown lecture Auerbach delivered on Dante—one of the principal figures of exile in the Western world—whose Commedia had been banned in the Ottoman Empire because of its offensive portrayal of Mohammed in the inferno. In discussing the 1939 lecture, it situates Auerbach in relationship to the new intellectual avenues that opened with Dante's translation into Turkish. It addresses the strange fact that, notwithstanding Turkey's new progressive and secular atmosphere, Auerbach downplayed the affiliations between the Judaic, Christian, and Islamic worlds.Less

The Literal Sense and Personal Identity: Hans Frei

John David Dawson

in Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity

This chapter explores Hans Frei's overall claim that a Christian figural reading of the Bible narratively extends, rather than effaces, its realistic and literal sense. The discussion begins with a ... More

This chapter explores Hans Frei's overall claim that a Christian figural reading of the Bible narratively extends, rather than effaces, its realistic and literal sense. The discussion begins with a study of Frei's argument that figural extension of the literal meaning of the Bible leads to its intensification instead of its supersession. Throughout the chapter, Frei references Erich Auerbach's conception of figural reading, and even improves Auerbach's nonsubstantial or relational conception of spiritual understanding.Less

Introduction

in East West Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to follow the plight of humanist scholars like Erich Auerbach who escaped Nazi persecution by seeking exile in a Muslim-dominated ... More

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to follow the plight of humanist scholars like Erich Auerbach who escaped Nazi persecution by seeking exile in a Muslim-dominated society. The book asks how a German-Jewish philologist, deemed “un-German” by the Nazis, experienced exile in a predominantly Muslim society. In exchange for protection from Nazism, German scholars were meant to help implement Turkey's broad-ranging Westernization reforms. The book suggests that modern Turkish identity was not autochthonous: it was, in some measure, forged with the help of the émigré, that is to say, with the help of privileged outsiders within Turkish society. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less

Turkish Humanism

in East West Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey

This chapter focuses on the particularities of Turkish humanism as a way of renewing Turkish culture. It shows that Turkish reformers in the 1930s drew on the Renaissance model to develop a system of ... More

This chapter focuses on the particularities of Turkish humanism as a way of renewing Turkish culture. It shows that Turkish reformers in the 1930s drew on the Renaissance model to develop a system of education based on Western classical learning. The chapter asks how Turkish identity was constructed via the outsider. Émigrés like Auerbach, Leo Spitzer, and others played an important role in educating students in philology and providing them with a humanist worldview. Exiled philologists, philosophers, historians, and librarians overhauled disciplinary practices, introduced new academic writing styles, and set up research libraries. In investigating the challenges of recreating modern culture in the image of ancient Europe, the chapter concludes that Turkey's humanist reform of 1939 was tantamount to a kind of classical humanism with socialist leanings.Less

Earlier Postliberalism: Narrative Theology and Hans Frei’s Synthesis of Wittgenstein and Barth

John Allan Knight

in Liberalism versus Postliberalism: The Great Divide in Twentieth-Century Theology

This chapter analyzes Hans Frei’s two major works, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative and The Identity of Jesus Christ, which shaped the postliberal movement. It describes his attempt to use the later ... More

This chapter analyzes Hans Frei’s two major works, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative and The Identity of Jesus Christ, which shaped the postliberal movement. It describes his attempt to use the later Wittgenstein to carry forward the Barthian program in theology. In doing so, he enlists literary assistance from Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis. The chapter thus describes Auerbach’s identification of the most important aspects of biblical narratives. In The Eclipse, Frei argues that liberal theology distorts these aspects of biblical narratives by taking their meaning to be their reference to some extratextual reality. Frei’s critique is thus sustained by his reliance on Wittgenstein and ordinary language philosophy. The chapter then turns to The Identity of Jesus Christ, Frei’s constructive attempt to remain faithful to the central insights of his mentors. Following Barth, he prioritizes ontology over epistemology, seeking an interpretation of Jesus’ identity that is faithful to Auerbach’s understanding that the biblical texts seek to overcome our reality with their own. This effort utilizes both Wittgenstein and Ryle in an attempt to carry out to the Barthian project described in chapter five.Less

Figures

George Oppitz-Trotman

in The Origins of English Revenge Tragedy

How do we see the figures of baroque drama? This chapter challenges common moral and historical interpretations of the revenge play by showing how judgement itself is forestalled by prior ... More

How do we see the figures of baroque drama? This chapter challenges common moral and historical interpretations of the revenge play by showing how judgement itself is forestalled by prior difficulties of discernment and recognition. Such difficulties are produced by these plays because early modern playwrights had begun for the first time to link tragic form to problems of figure and figuration, person and personation. From this interest arose serious artistic investigations of dramatic materials, achieved via extended manipulation of revenge tragedy’s corpses, ghosts, and uncertain substances. Exploring these from a variety of angles, this chapter concludes that both moralist and historicist accounts of early modern tragedy have conspired in the neglect of its most inventive claims upon our attention.Less

Germany on the Bosporus: Nazi Conspiracies and Émigré Politics

in East West Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey

This chapter shows that Auerbach's time in exile was further shaped by the very forces he sought to flee—German fascism. Istanbul was alive with the competing intellectual and political agendas of ... More

This chapter shows that Auerbach's time in exile was further shaped by the very forces he sought to flee—German fascism. Istanbul was alive with the competing intellectual and political agendas of Turkish nationalists on the one hand, and German fascists on the other. What the exiled intellectual made of this tense climate—what he took on or turned down—makes up the subject of the chapter. It traces his path through the landscape of German Istanbul, where Nazis spied in the halls of the university and German sympathizers plotted behind closed doors. Hitherto undiscovered documents in the German consular archive and unpublished letters by Spitzer and Auerbach reveal the complex relationships and conflicts that arose from Nazi efforts to meddle in the émigrés' academic and personal lives.Less

The Preservation of Historical Reality: Auerbach and Origen

John David Dawson

in Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity

This chapter discusses the preservation of the historicity of ancient biblical figures. It looks at the different ideas Erich Auerbach and Origen have on the subject. The start of the chapter ... More

This chapter discusses the preservation of the historicity of ancient biblical figures. It looks at the different ideas Erich Auerbach and Origen have on the subject. The start of the chapter includes Auerbach's praise of early Christian figural reading and an attack on ancient allegorical reading, which includes Origen's. It shows that Origenist allegorical reading dissolved history in favor of abstract or spiritual meaning. Through a careful comparison of Origen and Auerbach, it is revealed that both thinkers want to “preserve” historical reality. Auerbach believed that preserving history means allowing the existing, bodily reality of past events and persons to persist into the present events or persons that “fulfill” them. Origen, on the other hand, believed that the past is preserved whenever past events become present possibilities.Less

Mimicry in Modern Turkey: The Place of German and Turkish Jews

in East West Mimesis: Auerbach in Turkey

This chapter argues that anxieties regarding appropriation and assimilation impacted the status of Turkish and German Jews in different ways. It shows that three tropes—the mimic, the dönme, and the ... More

This chapter argues that anxieties regarding appropriation and assimilation impacted the status of Turkish and German Jews in different ways. It shows that three tropes—the mimic, the dönme, and the eternal guest—informed notions of Jewishness, Turkishness, and Europeanness during the nationalization and modernization period. By tracing these tropes in a range of sources, including university lectures, newspapers, university contracts, letters, and German consular reports, the chapter discloses how and why Jewish émigrés were granted privileged status in Turkey, even while Turkish Jews were being subjected to discrimination. Against the view that exile in 1930s Istanbul represented “an active impingement of European selfhood,” it is argued that Auerbach's Europeanness and in fact his Jewishness were the very reasons why he was hired to help modernize Istanbul University in the first place.Less

Boccaccio's Auerbach: Holding the Mirror up to Mimesis

Albert Russell Ascoli

in A Local Habitation and a Name: Imagining Histories in the Italian Renaissance

This chapter, like the previous one, interrogates the use of a single text or author to define a major break in Western cultural and especially literary history, in this case Auerbach's reading in ... More

This chapter, like the previous one, interrogates the use of a single text or author to define a major break in Western cultural and especially literary history, in this case Auerbach's reading in Mimesis of a single story of the Decameron (IV.2, the story of “Frate Alberto”) to define a break between the allegorical figuralism of Dante's Commedia and the supposed “realism” and “naturalism” of Boccaccio's style. The chapter argues that Auerbach, while he may have been correct to assert that Boccaccio contributes to the development of a mimetic style in the western literary tradition, misses fundamental aspects of the story he analyses, and the day in which it is situated, particularly its intricate reflections on the problem of representing “the real” in literature and on the presumptuousness of Dante's claims to bear witness to the truth of human life after death.Less

Introduction

John David Dawson

in Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity

This introductory chapter examines the supposed relation of Christianity to Judaism. It begins by showing how Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber defended the validity of the Old Testament as part of the ... More

This introductory chapter examines the supposed relation of Christianity to Judaism. It begins by showing how Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber defended the validity of the Old Testament as part of the Christian Bible. Faulhaber also provides a supersessionist account of Christianity's relation to Judaism, which most modern Christian theologians would likely reject. The discussion tries to determine whether there is a kind of Christian reading of the Old Testament that might express the relation of Christianity to Judaism, while respecting the independent religious identity of the Jews. The chapter also introduces the four thinkers who are studied in detail in the other chapters of this book: Daniel Boyarin, Hans Frei, Origen of Alexandria, and Erich Auerbach.Less

Conclusion

John David Dawson

in Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity

This concluding chapter summarizes the lessons that can be taken from Daniel Boyarin, Erich Auerbach, Hans Frei, and Origen on their figural extensions, biblical interpretations, and figural ... More

This concluding chapter summarizes the lessons that can be taken from Daniel Boyarin, Erich Auerbach, Hans Frei, and Origen on their figural extensions, biblical interpretations, and figural readings. It notes that Origen has intervened throughout this book in several guises: first as a target of the three other modern interpreters of figural reading, second as a critic of the three modern representations of figural reading, and finally as a figural reader and theorist.Less

Introduction

Victoria Kahn

in The Future of Illusion: Political Theology and Early Modern Texts

The introduction proposes that the missing term in contemporary debates about political theology is poiesis, understood as the view advanced by Hobbes and Vico that we can only know what we make ... More

The introduction proposes that the missing term in contemporary debates about political theology is poiesis, understood as the view advanced by Hobbes and Vico that we can only know what we make ourselves. It argues that to understand fully these debates we need to analyze the work of early twentieth-century theorists of political theology--Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, Ernst Kantorowicz, Ernst Cassirer, Walter Benjamin, and Sigmund Freud--that engages with the literature, philosophy, and art of the early modern period. It also provides an overview of contemporary debates about political theology in literature, philosophy, and critical theory, and argues that these debates are about what Hans Blumenberg called “the legitimacy of the modern age.”Less