To Make the Hands Impure

Art, Ethical Adventure, the Difficult and the Holy

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Theory, Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Judaism
Cover of the book To Make the Hands Impure by Adam Zachary Newton, Fordham University Press
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Author: Adam Zachary Newton ISBN: 9780823273317
Publisher: Fordham University Press Publication: January 1, 2016
Imprint: Fordham University Press Language: English
Author: Adam Zachary Newton
ISBN: 9780823273317
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Publication: January 1, 2016
Imprint: Fordham University Press
Language: English

How can cradling, handling, or rubbing a text be said, ethically, to have made something happen? What, as readers or interpreters, may come off in our hands in as we maculate or mark the books we read?

For Adam Zachary Newton, reading is anembodied practice wherein “ethics” becomes a matter of tact—in the doubled sense of touch and regard. With the image of the book lying in the hands of its readers as insistent refrain, To Make the Hands Impure cuts a provocative cross-disciplinary swath through classical Jewish texts, modern Jewish philosophy, film and performance, literature, translation, and the material text.

Newton explores the ethics of reading through a range of texts, from the Talmud and Midrash to Conrad’s Nostromo and Pascal’s Le Mémorial, from works by Henry Darger and Martin Scorsese to the National September 11 Memorial and a synagogue in Havana, Cuba. In separate chapters, he conducts masterly treatments of Emmanuel Levinas, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Stanley Cavell by emphasizing their performances as readers—a trebled orientation to Talmud, novel, and theater/film. To Make the Hands Impure stages the encounter of literary experience and scriptural traditions—the difficult and the holy—through an ambitious, singular, and innovative approach marked in equal measure by erudition and imaginative daring.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

How can cradling, handling, or rubbing a text be said, ethically, to have made something happen? What, as readers or interpreters, may come off in our hands in as we maculate or mark the books we read?

For Adam Zachary Newton, reading is anembodied practice wherein “ethics” becomes a matter of tact—in the doubled sense of touch and regard. With the image of the book lying in the hands of its readers as insistent refrain, To Make the Hands Impure cuts a provocative cross-disciplinary swath through classical Jewish texts, modern Jewish philosophy, film and performance, literature, translation, and the material text.

Newton explores the ethics of reading through a range of texts, from the Talmud and Midrash to Conrad’s Nostromo and Pascal’s Le Mémorial, from works by Henry Darger and Martin Scorsese to the National September 11 Memorial and a synagogue in Havana, Cuba. In separate chapters, he conducts masterly treatments of Emmanuel Levinas, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Stanley Cavell by emphasizing their performances as readers—a trebled orientation to Talmud, novel, and theater/film. To Make the Hands Impure stages the encounter of literary experience and scriptural traditions—the difficult and the holy—through an ambitious, singular, and innovative approach marked in equal measure by erudition and imaginative daring.

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