Synopses & Reviews
"A remarkable study, one that I recommend to any reader fascinated by the shaping of culture and the power of the psyche."
&3151;The Forward
How typical of his generation was T.S. Eliot when he complained that Hitler made an intelligent anti-semitism impossible for a generation? In her new book, Loathsome Jews and Engulfing Women, novelist and critic, Andrea Freud Loewenstein examines the persistent anti-semitic tendencies in modernist, British intellectual culture. Pursuing her subject with literary, historical, and psychological analyses, Loewenstein argues that this anti-semitism must be understood in terms of its metaphorical link with misogyny.
Situated in the context of the history of Jews in Britain, Loathsome Jews and Engulfing Women begins by questioning the widespread belief that the British government was a friend to the Jews in the 30s and 40s. Loewenstein shows that, as evident in the hypocrisy of many British governmental policies prior to and during WWII, Britain actively collaborated in the Jews' destruction. Against the backdrop of this tragic complicity in the Holocaust, Loewenstein evaluates Jewish stereotypes in the works of three representative twentieth-century British thinkers and writers. Her analysis provides a revealing critique of British modernism.
In a larger sense, Loathsome Jews and Engulfing Womenexplores the riddle of prejudice. Loewenstein argues that anti-semitism is nurtured in an environment populated by other hatreds --misogyny, homophobia, and racism. To explain the interaction of these prejudices, she develops an investigative model grounded in object relations theory and informed by the works of such theoretically diverse authors as Virginia Woolf, Kate Millett, and Alice Miller. Loewenstein lucidly argues within an autobiographical framework, insisting on the need for critics to . . . look within ourselves for 'that terrible other' rather than to complacently assume that we ourselves exist outside the ideology of power.
This well-written and readable book will be of interest to many people, ranging students of British history to psychoanalysts, from historians of Jewish culture to anyone interested in feminist and literary theory.
Review
“Italian Immigrant Radical Culture not only makes an important contribution to the history of the Italian-American left but, more broadly, reminds us of the importance of the cultural and literary dimension of radical politics in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century.”-Fraser Ottanelli,Professor of History, University of South Florida
Review
“A welcome introduction to the poorly understood immigrant sovversivi, whose ideological commitments to revolution and emancipation as often found expression in poetry, theater, and the arts as on the picket line and in the radical press.”-Donna Gabaccia,University of Minnesota
Review
“Utilizing a broad spectrum of materials from Italian archives and American repositories, Bencivenni penetrates deeply into a hitherto unexplored dimension of the lost world of Italian immigrant radicalism--its culture. With acute insight and intellectual sophistication, she provides a superb analysis of radical working-class poetry, drama, and art, together with vivid biographical portraits of principal contributors, both men and women, and their struggles against capitalist exploitation and fascist domination. Her book is a must for any scholar or general reader drawn to these fascinating subjects.” -Nunzio Pernicone,author of Italian Anarchism, 1864-1892
Synopsis
Maligned by modern media and often stereotyped, Italian Americans possess a vibrant, if largely forgotten, radical past. In
Italian Immigrant Radical Culture, Marcella Bencivenni delves into the history of the sovversivi, a transnational generation of social rebels, and offers a fascinating portrait of their political struggle as well as their milieu, beliefs, and artistic creativity in the United States.
As early as 1882, the sovversivi founded a socialist club in Brooklyn. Radical organizations then multiplied and spread across the country, from large urban cities to smaller industrial mining areas. By 1900, thirty official Italian sections of the Socialist Party along the East Coast and countless independent anarchist and revolutionary circles sprang up throughout the nation. Forming their own alternative press, institutions, and working class organizations, these groups created a vigorous movement and counterculture that constituted a significant part of the American Left until World War II.
Italian Immigrant Radical Culture compellingly documents the wide spectrum of this oppositional culture and examines the many cultural and artistic forms it took, from newspapers to literature and poetry to theater and visual art. As the first cultural history of Italian American activism, it provides a richer understanding of the Italian immigrant experience while also deepening historical perceptions of radical politics and culture.
About the Author
Marcella Bencivenni is an assistant professor of history at Hostos Community College (CUNY). Besides her recent book, Italian Immigrant Radical Culture, she has written numerous articles about American labor, immigration and Italian American history, and has co-edited with Ron Hayduk Radical Perspectives on Immigration for the journal Socialism and Democracy of which she is an editorial board member.