Please join us on Monday, February 12th at 5pm in Swift 201 for a presentation by:

Ido Telem (PhD Candidate, Comparative Literature):

Tasting Revival: Aesthetic Judgement, Critical Authority and Political Thought in David Frishman’s Literary Criticism

In 1905, Hebrew literary critic David Frishman published a tribute to Friedrich Schiller in the paper, commemorating the centennial of the German poet’s death. More than a eulogy, Frishman’s piece also included a scathing admonition of the Jewish reading public, whom Frishman criticized for their diminished interest in Schiller, interpreting this as indicative of a broader decline in Jewish feeling, thinking, and judging—a lost standard of taste. Drawing from the conceptual history of taste in Enlightenment thought and its more recent critiques, I trace how Frishman employed the notion of taste not merely as an allegedly universal human capacity, which he argued the Jewish readership lacked, but also as a means to articulate a distinct Hebrew sensibility, or Hebrew taste. Frishman’s insistence on taste in both these forms, I argue, is fundamental to his aesthetic and political thought, and provides a fresh perspective on debates surrounding aesthetic autonomy in the Hebrew cultural revival.

The paper, to be read in advance of the workshop, is available here (password: frishman): Telem.FrishmanTaste.JSWorkshop