Reading Kafka, Debating Revelation: Gershom Scholem's Shadow Dialogue with Hans-Joachim Schoeps
Gershom Scholem's imaginative reading of Franz Kafka has long fascinated scholars. Existing accounts, however, have mostly overlooked the seminal role that Hans-Joachim Schoeps plays in Scholem's literary-theological interpretation of the author. This oversight is consistent with the gener...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
[2017]
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| In: |
Literature and theology
Year: 2017, Volume: 31, Issue: 1, Pages: 78-98 |
| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion BH Judaism FA Theology TK Recent history |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Gershom Scholem's imaginative reading of Franz Kafka has long fascinated scholars. Existing accounts, however, have mostly overlooked the seminal role that Hans-Joachim Schoeps plays in Scholem's literary-theological interpretation of the author. This oversight is consistent with the general disregard towards Schoeps, a highly controversial figure in the landscape of twentieth-century German-Jewish thought. This article argues that to grasp the theological and political stakes of Scholem's Kafka interpretations, one must read them as an extension of his polemic against Hans-Joachim Schoeps. In what follows I reconstruct the 'shadow dialogue' that takes place between Schoeps and Scholem's competing interpretations of Kafka in order to elaborate the religious and ideological implications of their divergent commentaries. While both thinkers seem to agree that Kafka's fiction bears strong affinities to Jewish theology, each of them has a very different Jewish theology in mind. I show how this conflict of interpretations serves as an extension of their earlier theological dispute about the meaning of revelation and law in Judaism. By linking their theological disagreement to their subsequent literary interpretations, I demonstrate how German Jewry's religious, political and cultural dilemmas are mirrored in these two competing Kafka commentaries. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4623 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Literature and theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/litthe/frw004 |