The modern world, sociologist Max Weber famously claimed, is characterized by “disenchantment”—the advance of a rational, secularized outlook. Why then does modern storytelling contain a surprisingly large “mystical” footprint? From the wondrous Hassidic tales of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov to the satirical and biting films of the Coen Brothers, concepts from Jewish mysticism in particular are noticeably prevalent in modernism. Narratives of exile and redemption, histories of persecution and oppression, and nationalist understandings of war and settlement have all been cast in terms of central motifs from Jewish folklore and Kabbalah. Indeed, such themes are found not only among Jewish writers and artists at the very cutting edge of literary modernity, as with Franz Kafka, but also in contemporary secular works like the magical realism of Jorge Luis Borges or the science fiction of Ted Chiang. How can we understand this imprint on such a range of works? And why do these themes remain so relevant in modern cultural imaginaries—both Jewish and beyond?
In this course, we will explore the intersection of mysticism and literature through a reading not only of the literary works themselves, but also of their source materials and vital transposition and popularization by 20th-century intellectuals like Gershom Scholem, Martin Buber, and Walter Benjamin. The course will review the three central narratives of exile, redemption, and “the Golem” (or artificial life), as developed in both Jewish folklore and modern letters. We will survey how storytellers have engaged and deployed these narratives in the context of shifting religious, material, and political conditions and the effects this engagement produces. Literary selections will include works by Kafka, Chiang, Borges, Nachman, and Shmuel Yosef Agnon. We will situate these literary selections alongside theoretical reflections on storytelling, memory, redemption, and time by Scholem, Buber, Chaim Nahman Bialik, and Benjamin, among others, trying to understand why these seemingly particular and often marginal concepts are so central to modern storytelling and life.
