A space of anxiety

A Space of Anxiety engages with a body of German-Jewish literature that, from the beginning of the century onwards, explores notions of identity and kinship in the context of migration, exile and persecution. The study offers an analysis of how Freud, Kafka, Roth, Drach and Hilsenrath employ, to varying degrees, the travel paradigm to question those borders and boundaries that define the space between the self and the other. A Space of Anxiety argues that from Freud to Hilsenrath, German-Jewish literature emerges from an ambivalent space of enunciation which challenges the great narrative of an historical identity authenticated by an "originary" past. Inspired by postcolonial and psychoanalytic theories, the author shows that modern German-Jewish writers inhabit a "Third Space" which poses an alternative to an understanding of culture as a homogeneous tradition based on (national) unity.The study is of interest to students of German literature, German-Jewish literature and Cultural Studies.