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In Modern Hebrew Literary Discourse

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In Modern Hebrew Literary Discourse Life of the Non-Living: Nationalization, Language and the Narrative of “Revival” in Modern Hebrew Literary Discourse Roni Henig Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2018 © 2018 Roni Henig All rights reserved ABSTRACT Life of the Non-Living: Nationalization, Language and the Narrative of “Revival” in Modern Hebrew Literary Discourse Roni Henig This dissertation critically examines the question of language revival in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Hebrew literature. Focusing on major texts that participate in the political and aesthetic endeavor of reviving Hebrew as an exclusive national language, this study traces the narrative of revival and explores the changes and iterations it underwent in the course of several decades, from the 1890s to the early 1920s. Informed by a wide range of critical literary theory, I analyze the primary tropes used to articulate the process whereby Hebrew came to inhabit new discursive roles. Building on close readings of canonical texts by authors ranging from Ahad Ha’am and Mikha Yosef Berdichevsky to Hayim Nahman Bialik, Rachel Katznelson, and Yosef Hayim Brenner, I argue that while modern Hebrew literature largely rejected the philological assumption that Hebrew was a dead language, it nevertheless produced a discourse around the notion of “revival,” in a manner that deferred the possibility of perceiving Hebrew as fully living. My readings show that while many of these texts contemplate linguistic transformation in terms of revitalization or birth, the national mission of language revival is in fact entwined with mourning, and ultimately produces the object of revival as neither dead nor fully alive. Dwelling on the ambivalence and suspension of that moment, and examining a range of nuances in its articulation, I explore the roles that Hebrew language and literature play in nationalization, Zionism, and the constitution of a new Hebrew subjectivity. Table of Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………..iii Introduction: Life of the Non-Living…………………………………………………………….1 Chapter 1: The Birth of a Lifeless Creature – Ahad Ha’am and M.Y. Berdichevsky Between Revival and Mourning………………………………………………………………………….21 1.1 The Dispute over Ha-shiloah………………………………………………………26 1.2 “Artificial Creations Made to Move by an External, Mechanical Push”: Ahad Ha’am Against Aestheticization……………………………………………………………33 1.3 Killing the Beast: Berdichevsky’s Response……………………………………….45 1.4 The Tear in the Heart, The Song of the Dead………………………………………52 1.5 The Split Language: A Monstrous Horizon………………………………………...61 Chapter 2: Pregnant Hebrew – Hayim Nahman Bialik and the Uncontrollable Body of Language ……………………………………………………………………………………….................75 2.1 The Birth of a New Hebrew Self: A Prophecy of National Poetics………………..79 2.2 Bialik’s Philosophy of Language and the Paradox of Language Pangs……………90 2.3 From an Inanimate Object to a Living Creature……………………………………99 2.4 The Ingathering Dictionary: Knowing Language from Within…………………...109 2.5 A Refusal to Give Birth……………………………………………………….......120 Chapter 3: Abandoning the Good Mother – Rachel Katznelson Between Yiddish and Hebrew ………………………………………………………………………………………………...128 3.1 Multilingualism and Language Wars…………………………………………......133 3.2 Hebrew as a Foreign Language…………………………………………………...138 3.3 “Would We Abandon What Was Natural and Choose What Was Artificial?” On Language Wanderings……………………………………………………………144 3.4 Revolution of the Dead Mother…………………………………………………...154 3.5 The Dangers of Not Knowing…………………………………………………….168 i Chapter 4: Stammering Hebrew – Y.H. Brenner’s Deferred Beginnings……………………..181 4.1 The Chains of Hebrew Speech: Early Responses to “Hebrew in Hebrew”……….188 4.2 Brenner’s Tongue and the Question of Spoken Hebrew………………………….192 4.3 From the Beginning: “Youngsters with No Language At All”…………………...197 4.4 The Split Narrator: Brenner’s Poetics of Stammering…………………………….210 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….221 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………..225 ii Acknowledgements This dissertation could not have been written without the help, support, and advice of many mentors, teachers and colleagues, as well as friends and family, whom I wish to thank. I am deeply grateful to my advisor Dan Miron, who has guided this project from its inception with trust and persistence, and generously shared with me his insights, his encyclopedic knowledge, and his love of the subject matter. Dan knowingly directed me to some of the most exciting texts I had ever laid eyes upon, and was incredibly open-minded to my readings and choices. I feel particularly lucky to have had the chance to study with him before his retirement. Being his last doctoral advisee at Columbia is a unique honor, which I accept with gratitude. I am indebted to Judith Butler in ways I cannot begin to express. Her scholarship, her teaching, and our ongoing dialogue have left a profound impact on my work, and completely transformed the way I think, read, and write. Her kind invitation to visit Berkeley has given me the oppritunity to broaden my intellectual network and initate many conversations from which I still learn and enjoy. I wish to thank Judith for her interest in this project, her insightful readings and stimulating questions, and her consistent encouragement and support. Gil Anidjar meticulously read and commented on my work in different stages and repeatedly challenged me to question and rethink my most basic premises. He suggested unexpected comparative and theoretical perspectives that have helped shape the tone of this project. I am particularly grateful to him for encouraging me to speak provocatively. Chana Kronfeld “adopted” me as an informal student when I was a visiting scholar at Berkeley and responded to my work with the utmost generosity even before officially joining my dissertation committee. Our dialogue has been a continuous driving force in my final year of writing, and I am deeply grateful to her for her attentive, instructive, and scrupulous feedback. Gil Hochberg iii kindly agreed to serve on my committee in her first year at Columbia. I thank her for her advice, her perceptive feedback, and her fierce presence. In my final year at Tel Aviv University I had the privilege of studying with Galili Shahar, whose work substantially affected my thinking, and who has been a mentor and constant interlocutor ever since. I thank him for his continuous support from afar and for the inspiring conversations we had during my visits to Israel. Yitzhak Lewis walked me through the challenges and intricacies of dissertation writing and provided patient and generous guidance. I am deeply grateful to him for his day-to-day mentorship, his moral support, and his friendship. Numerous scholars and colleagues read and commented on chapters and/or discussed with me the issues at stake. I thank Mamadou Diouf, Timothy Mitchell, and Sheldon Pollock from the department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia for reading and commenting on different drafts. The late Alan Mintz gave me incredibly helpful feedback on the fourth chapter. I have benefited greatly from conversations with Michal Arbell, Maya Barzilai, Michael Gluzman, Hannan Hever, Lital Levy, Orly Lubin, Adam Zachary Newton, and Hamutal Tsamir. It was in Robert Young’s seminar on Marxist Philosophies of Language at NYU that I first began to develop my work on stammer. Friends and colleagues, many of them fellow graduate students who shared the journey of dissertation writing, provided most helpful feedback and advice, as well as invaluable emotional support. Neta Alexander, Hila Amit, Guy Erlich, Ilan Gonen, Naama Harel, Yaakov Hershkovitz, Wendel Marsh, and David Tal lent an attentive ear, made themselves available to me, and patiently answered even my most random questions in all hours of the day and night. Throughout my years as a graduate student I also had fascinating dialogues with Daniel Behar, Eyal Bassan, Danielle Drori, Elik Elhanan, Ghassan Fawzi, Jessica Kirzane, Yuval Kremnitzer, iv Agi Legutko, Yael Segalovitch, Samuel Spinner, Sahar Ullah, and Saul Zaritt. Yoav Ronel walked me through M.Y. Berdichevsky’s melancholic Eros. Neta Alexander commented on my introduction. Sunny Yuddkoff offered her advice and edited my translations in the first chapter. Allen Durgin helped me extensively with my dissertation prospectus, and returned to the project three years later to offer his incisive comments on the introduction and the conclusion. Diana Clarke patiently proofread the dissertation. I thank all of the brilliant consultants at the Writing Center at Columbia, the MESAAS Post-MPhil Dissertation Colloquium, and the members of the dissertation workshop at the department of Comparative Literature at Berkeley. My dissertation was made possible with funding from the department of MESAAS and grants from the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life at Columbia. I have received administrative support and much-needed encouragement from Jessica Rechtschaffer and Michael Fishman of MESAAS, Catherine Lasota, Kelly Lemons, and Sarah Monks of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, and Dana Kresel and Annela Levitov of the IIJS. I am thankful beyond words to my family, who patiently accepted my long absences: my parents, Rachel and Moshe Henig, my in-laws, Tali, Doron, and Yuval Vilner-Zahavi,
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