Ale Mentshn Zaynen Brider: On I. L. Peretz’s “Pure Universality”

• In Event: Graduate Student Lightning Session: Comparative Ashkenazi-Sephardi Studies

Abstract

This paper will analyze the discrepancy between the numinous elements in I. L. Peretz’s stories and the Zeitgeist which pursues the normalization and rational side of Judaism in his time through the concept of “pure universality.” This concept is inspired by Walter Benjamin’s “pure language,” and it indicates the universal experience held by all humans but can only be revealed through the differences brought by the encounter, which is a repeated phenomenon in Peretz’s stories. To present this pure universality which cannot be fully expressed by language, not only does Peretz diminish the function of language, he also uses the transcendent character of the numinous elements to relate them to the pure universality. Therefore, what Wissenschaft des Judentums scholars want to prove is also presented in Peretz’s stories in a literary way without splitting irrationality from rationality.

Author

• Anruo Bao, Columbia University