Disenchantment
George Steiner and the Meaning of Western Civilization after Auschwitz
by Catherine D. Chatterley
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Pub Date Mar 11 2011 | Archive Date Sep 01 2012
Description
Having escaped the Nazis as a child, Steiner vowed that his work as an intellectual would attempt to understand the tragedy of the Shoah. In Disenchantment, Chatterley focuses on Steiner's neglected writings on the Holocaust and antisemitism and places this work at the center of her analysis of his criticism. She clearly demonstrates how Steiner's family history and education, as well as the historical and cultural developments that surrounded him, are central to the evolution of his dominant intellectual concerns. It is during the 1950s and 1960s, in relation to unfolding discoveries about the Nazi murder of European Jewry, that Steiner begins to study the effects of the Holocaust on language and culture and then questions the very purpose and meaning of the humanities.
The first intellectual biography of George Steiner, Disenchantment provides an invaluable contribution to literary and cultural studies, confirming his critical and intellectual legacy.
Catherine D. Chatterley is the founding director of the Canadian Institute for the Study of Antisemitism (CISA) and teaches modern European and Jewish history at the University of Manitoba.
Advance Praise
"Dr Chatterley has written the first comprehensive account of George Steiner's influential oeuvre spanning more than half a century. Disenchantment rightly focuses on Steiner's compelling idea of a western 'post-culture' after Auschwitz. Her theme is developed with lucidity and sophistication in relation to Steiner's biography and fiction, his theories of translation, and, above all, his cultural criticism inspired by The Frankfurt School. The book should be read by anyone interested in post-Holocaust thought."
Professor Bryan Cheyette, Chair in Modern Literature, University of Reading, UK
"This lucidly-written, insightful book on the work of George Steiner is long-overdue. Chatterley demonstrates the profound and lasting effects of the Shoah on one of its seminal interpreters.
Her study is essential reading for anyone interested in the life and work of one of our most important living critics." - Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Professor of English and Jewish Studies, Indiana University.
"Catherine Chatterley's book on George Steiner performs an essential service. It is at once a close reading of a diverse and compelling body of cultural and literary criticism and a corrective to a great load of nonsense that has too often been lavished upon Steiner's work. Alert to the controversy generated by particular essays and books, Chatterley has kept her eye chiefly on Steiner's own formulations and seen to the heart of the dark yet generous vision informing the work of a writer who emerges, in her telling, as a compelling and indispensable thinker."-ROBERT BOYERS, Editor of SALMAGUNDI
"Catherine Chatterley provides an illuminating examination of George Steiner's life and work on language and literature. An important contribution to literary and cultural studies, Disenchantment traces important intellectual influences and the impact of the Holocaust on George Steiner's thinking and confirms his critical and intellectual legacy."- --- S. LillianKremer, Editor HolocaustLiterature: An Encyclopedia of Writers andTheir Work.
"Focusing on the centrality of the Holocaust to Steiner's understanding of language, literature, hermeneutics, and the fate of Western culture, Chatterley provides an admirably clear introduction to the biographical context and trajectory of Steiner's immense -- and immensely important -- oeuvre."---Ronald A. Sharp, Professor of English, Vassar College
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9780815609605 |
| PRICE | 24.95 |
| PAGES | 200 |
