Critical Narcissism and the Coming-of-Age of Jewish American Literary Studies

Abstract

Three and a half centuries since the first Jews arrived in New Amsterdam, and more than two and a half centuries since the first Jewish-authored book was published in Boston, the academic study of Jewish American literature may very well be coming of age. There have been some very promising signs in recent years. W.W. Norton, the leading publisher of classroom anthologies, has given the field its imprimatur with Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology, and Cambridge University Press has added to its noted series The Cambridge Companion to Jewish American Literature, which I had the privilege of coediting with Hana Wirth-Nesher. Consider, too, the star-studded fanfare of the Celebrating Jewish-American conference that accompanied the opening of the Leonard L. Milberg '53 Collection of Jewish-American Writers at Princeton University.' Along with the professional recognition it is re-