Jews And Gender. Responses to Otto Weininger [Paperback]

Nancy Harrowitz (Editor), Barbara Hyams (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 1994

In 1903 Otto Weininger, A Viennese Jew who converted to Protestantism, published "Geschiecht und Charakter" (Sex and Character), a book in which he set out to prove the moral inferiority and character deficiency of 'the woman' and 'the Jew'. Almost immediately, he was acclaimed as a young genius for bringing these two elements together. Shortly thereafter, at the age of twenty-three, Weininger committed suicide in the room where Beethoven had died. Weininger's sensationalized death immortalized him as an intellectual who expressed the abject misogyny and antisemitism. This collection of essays, many translated into English for the first time, examines Weininger's influence and reception in Western culture, particularly his impact on important writers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sigmund Freud, Franz Kafka, and James Joyce. One essay considers the ways Weininger's ideas were used to further Nazi ideology, and several offer feminist approaches to interpreting the intersection of antisemitism and misogyny. The concluding essay explores Weininger's surprising role in Israel's ongoing sociopolitical self-definition through the bold production of Joshua Sobol's play, "The Soul of a Jew (Weininger's Last Night)." This volume 's close examination of Weininger's ideas, and their subsequent appearance in other well-known texts, suggests how the legacies of prejudice affect Western culture today. Author note: Nancy A. Harrowitz is author of Antisemitism, Misogyny and the Logic of Cultural Difference: Cesare Lombroso and Matilde Serao and editor of Tainted Greatness: Antisemitism and Cultural Heroes (Temple). Barbara Hyams is Lecturer with the rank of Assistant Professor of German at Brandeis University.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

International scholars examine the legacy of a turn-of-the-century self-hating Austrian Jew

About the Author

Nancy A. Harrowitz is author of Antisemitism, Misogyny and the Logic of Cultural Difference: Cesare Lombroso and Matilde Serao and editor of Tainted Greatness: Antisemitism and Cultural Heroes (Temple).

Product Details

• Paperback: 341 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press (December 30, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566392497
• ISBN-13: 978-1566392495
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,514,832 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars mainly a retrospective, March 1, 2007

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This review is from: Jews And Gender. Responses to Otto Weininger (Paperback)

The subject of this book, Otto Weininger, played a minor but disturbing and uneasy role in the early twentieth century. A self-hating Jew, whose diatribes excited much comment when they were published. His derogatory remarks about women and Jews, and his attempt to associate these remarks together invoked much countering a century ago.

Perhaps the most interesting section concerns Freud's response to Weininger's claims, in the field of psychoanalysis. Most of the chapters cover replies that were originally published in French and German, probably rendering them inaccessible to the English-only reader.

Luckily, most of the controversies have now been settled. The book is mainly a retrospective.