Synopses & Reviews
Lorenzetti's frescoes in Siena serve as the starting point of Ian Heywood's critical work, as well as the initial occurrence of the recurring city motif which he utilizes to reveal the connections between theory, discourse, language, and modernity. The city, as Heywood shows, is a symbol of collective life and the social bond and is directly related to the equally powerful motif, and question, of language.
Social Theories of Art offers a criticism of influential theoretical work that identifies both the poverty of much contemporary "art theory" and the important but underacknowledged ethical implications of theorizing. Operating through the writings of Becker, Wolff, Bürger, and others, Heywood shows how, despite these theorists' efforts to identify art's distinctive value, their theoretical accounts are degraded by reductionism and social violence. Heywood then broadens his canvas to explore the notion of ethical reflexivity to conclude with a consideration of the gap between the actual and the theoretical aspects of art.
Heywood writes clearly, illuminating the problematic relationship between seminar and studio, and his findings will hold interest for students of art history, fine art, sociology, and philosophy.
Review
"Insight, authority and scrupulousness are among the virtues of Seth Forman's account of the interaction of two conspicuous minorities in the postwar era. In its clarity and its wisdom, Blacks in the Jewish Mind constitutes a marvelous advance over previous scholarship; and in showing how frequently Jews misunderstood their own communal interests, this book offers a challenge to the present even as the past is luminated."-Stephen Whitfield,Brandeis University
Review
"In an area where deep emotions and strong ideological feelings pass for information, Seth Forman's book is a model of calm, rational thought. He puts the black-Jewish relationship in a deeper historical perspective than has existed up to this point. Blacks in the Jewish Mind will be welcome to a broad public generally as well as scholars in the field."-Murray Friedman,author of What Went Wrong: The Creation and Collapse of the Black-Jewish Alliance
Review
"Insight, authority and scrupulousness are among the virtues of Seth Forman's account of the interaction of two conspicuous minorities in the postwar era. In its clarity and its wisdom, Blacks in the Jewish Mind constitutes a marvelous advance over previous scholarship; and in showing how frequently Jews misunderstood their own communal interests, this book offers a challenge to the present even as the past is illuminated."
"In an area where deep emotions and strong ideological feelings pass for information, Seth Forman's book is a model of calm, rational thought. He puts the black-Jewish relationship in a deeper historical perspective than has existed up to this point. Blacks in the Jewish Mind will be welcome to a broad public generally as well as scholars in the field."
"[A] rich, engaging, scholarly, and nuanced chronicle of an . . . often-tormented interethnic, interreligious, interracial relationship."
"Bold and uncompromising. Cleverly, he turns a lot of revisionist race history on its head."
"Insight, authority and scrupulousness are among the virtues of Seth Forman's account of the interaction of two conspicuous minorities in the postwar era. In its clarity and its wisdom, Blacks in the Jewish Mind constitutes a marvelous advance over previous scholarship; and in showing how frequently Jews misunderstood their own communal interests, this book offers a challenge to the present even as the past is luminated."
Review
"[A] rich, engaging, scholarly, and nuanced chronicle of an . . . often-tormented interethnic, interreligious, interracial relationship."-MultiCultural Review,
Review
"Bold and uncompromising. Cleverly, he turns a lot of revisionist race history on its head."-Patterns of Prejudice,
Synopsis
Since the 1960s the relationship between Blacks and Jews has been a contentious one. While others have attempted to explain or repair the break-up of the Jewish alliance on civil rights, Seth Forman here sets out to determine what Jewish thinking on the subject of Black Americans reveals about Jewish identity in the U.S. Why did American Jews get involved in Black causes in the first place? What did they have to gain from it? And what does that tell us about American Jews?
In an extremely provocative analysis, Forman argues that the commitment of American Jews to liberalism, and their historic definition of themselves as victims, has caused them to behave in ways that were defined as good for Blacks, but which in essence were contrary to Jewish interests. They have not been able to dissociate their needs--religious, spiritual, communal, political--from those of African Americans, and have therefore acted in ways which have threatened their own cultural vitality.
Avoiding the focus on Black victimization and white racism that often infuses work on Blacks and Jews, Forman emphasizes the complexities inherent in one distinct white ethnic group's involvement in America's racial dilemma.
Synopsis
Since the 1960s the relationship between Blacks and Jews has been a contentious one. While others have attempted to explain or repair the break-up of the Jewish alliance on civil rights, Seth Forman here sets out to determine what Jewish thinking on the subject of Black Americans reveals about Jewish identity in the U.S. Why did American Jews get involved in Black causes in the first place? What did they have to gain from it? And what does that tell us about American Jews?
In an extremely provocative analysis, Forman argues that the commitment of American Jews to liberalism, and their historic definition of themselves as victims, has caused them to behave in ways that were defined as good for Blacks, but which in essence were contrary to Jewish interests. They have not been able to dissociate their needs--religious, spiritual, communal, political--from those of African Americans, and have therefore acted in ways which have threatened their own cultural vitality.
Avoiding the focus on Black victimization and white racism that often infuses work on Blacks and Jews, Forman emphasizes the complexities inherent in one distinct white ethnic group's involvement in America's racial dilemma.
About the Author
Seth Forman teaches in the Department of Political Science at SUNY at Stony Brook. His work on politics and culture has appeared in Partisan Review, the American Scholar, Midstream, and Newsday, and he is the coeditor of Great Jewish Speeches Throughout History.
Table of Contents
Introduction : race relations and the invisible Jew -- The liberal Jew, the southern Jew, and desegregation in the South, 1945-1964 -- Jews and racial integration in the North, 1945-1966 -- The New York intellectuals and their "Negro problem", 1945-1966 -- The unbearable whiteness of being Jewish : the Jewish approach toward Black power, 1967-1972 -- The Jew as middleman : Jewish opposition to Black power, 1967-1972 -- Conclusion : Blacks and Jews in American popular culture.