• Introduction
• Benjamin Schreier (bio)

The Forum section of Studies in American Jewish Literature is an occasional feature in which scholars can explore significant questions, problems, and events at the intersection of Jewish American literary studies and the larger multidisciplinary Jewish studies field. Jewish studies is, at face value, a complex and multivalent assemblage, perhaps anxiously maintained, even if often deceptively so. With origins grounded in nationalist philology, it currently understands itself as promiscuously interdisciplinary. But the path from those restricted origins to its present expansive existence is neither continuous nor unitary; to examine that history from a perspective inscribed from within it will undoubtedly yield limited results. As increasing numbers of scholars become interested in critically examining the theoretical and historical foundations of Jewish studies, the publication of Adam Zachary Newton's Jewish Studies as Counterlife: A Report to the Academy (Fordham University Press, 2019) presents an opportunity to think deliberately about the institutional history, current configurations, and possible futures of Jewish studies.

Professional Jewish studies has never had a particularly easy (some, like "I," might say healthy) relationship with "theory"—I mean this both in the historical sense, indicating the movement that started exerting institutional force in the late 1950s and 1960s in what for a while we called the human sciences, and also in the [End Page 84] methodological sense, to suggest that Jewish studies seems to have a fair amount of trouble thinking through the ways that theory informs its practice—and this twinned refusal has persisted in the historicist predilections of AJS-sponsored Jewish studies to this day. Not unrelatedly, Jewish studies has a sometimes difficult relationship with literary studies understood as anything other than literary history, often specifically as limned by nationalistic itineraries. Less frequently than its sibling academic identity-studies formations does Jewish studies feel comfortable applying a critical lens to its methodologies and institutional practices. These histories of disciplinary tension that traverse the Jewish studies field—almost always experienced affectively by Jewish studies intellectuals—are a focus of Newton's book, but they also come to a head in Newton's book.

Here we gather responses from three scholars whose interests span the disciplinary range of Jewish studies—experts in, respectively, literary studies, history, and religion—to respond to Newton's field-level provocations. Their brief was open-ended: how does taking seriously Newton's project in Jewish Studies as Counterlife affect your intellectual practice within Jewish studies? Beyond that, they were free to explore whatever paths their thinking took them on. [End Page 85]

BENJAMIN SCHREIER is the Mitrani Family Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of English and Jewish Studies at Pennsylvania State University. He is author of The Rise and Fall of Jewish American Literature: Ethnic Studies and the Challenge of Identity (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), The Impossible Jew: Identity and the Reconstruction of Jewish American Literature (New York University Press, 2015), and The Power of Negative Thinking: Cynicism and the History of Modern American Literature (Virginia University Press, 2009). In addition, he is coeditor of The Year's Work in Nerds, Wonks, and Neocons (Indiana University Press, 2017). He has been the editor of Studies in American Jewish Literature since 2011.

• 介绍
• 本杰明·施雷尔（本杰明）

美国犹太文学研究论坛部分这是一个偶然的特征，学者们可以在美国犹太人文学研究与更大的跨学科犹太研究领域的交汇处探索重大问题，问题和事件。从表面上看，犹太研究是一个复杂且多价的组合，即使经常被欺骗，也可能会焦急地维持下去。起源于民族主义语言学，它目前将自己理解为混杂学科。但是，从那些受限制的起源到现在的广泛存在的道路既不是连续的也不是单一的。从内在的角度考察历史无疑会产生有限的结果。随着越来越多的学者对批判性地研究犹太研究的理论和历史基础感兴趣，犹太研究作为反生命：给学院的一份报告（福特汉姆大学出版社，2019年）提供了一个机会来仔细思考犹太研究的制度历史，当前形态和可能的未来。

犹太专业研究从未与“理论”建立特别轻松的关系（有些人说“我”可能说得很健康），我的意思是从历史意义上讲，这表明这一运动在1950年代末和1960年代末开始施加制度性力量在一段时间内我们称之为人文科学，在[End Page 84]中从方法论意义上讲，这表明犹太人的研究似乎在通过理论为实践提供信息的方式中进行思考时遇到了很多麻烦，而这种孪生的拒绝一直持续到AJS资助的犹太人研究的历史主义倾向。并非毫无关系，犹太研究与文学研究之间有时会存在困难的关系，而文学研究被理解为除文学历史以外的任何事物，通常是由民族主义路线限定的。犹太研究不像其兄弟姐妹的学术研究那样频繁，对它的方法论和制度实践应用批判性的镜头感到很自在。这些贯穿犹太研究领域的纪律紧张历史-几乎总是被犹太研究知识分子深情地经历-是牛顿著作的重点，

在这里，我们收集了三位学者的回应，他们的兴趣涵盖了犹太研究的学科范围（分别是文学研究，历史和宗教领域的专家），以回应牛顿的田野挑衅。他们的简介是不限成员名额的：牛顿在犹太研究中的项目“反抗生活”如何严重影响您在犹太研究中的知识实践？除此之外，他们还可以自由地探索他们的思维带给他们的任何途径。[结束第85页]

BENJAMIN SCHREIER是宾夕法尼亚州立大学Mitrani家族的犹太研究教授以及英语和犹太研究教授。他是《美国犹太人文学的兴衰：种族研究与身份的挑战》（宾夕法尼亚大学出版社，2020年），《不可能的犹太人：美国犹太文学的身份与重构》（纽约大学出版社，2015年），和负面思考的力量：犬儒主义与当代美国文学史（弗吉尼亚大学出版社，2009年）。此外，他还是The Year's Work in Nerds，Wonks和Neocons的共同编辑（印第安纳大学出版社，2017年）。他一直是《美国犹太文学研究》的编辑。 自2011年以来。