Before we speak, we listen. Or, at least, we should. In a book entitled Difficult Freedom, Emmanuel Levinas writes of how, when we listen to the other in this or that conversation, we experience peace. This may be thought of as ironic since, after all, communication or dialogue is thought by many to be the […]
Robert Walser’s fictional child-character, Fritz Kocher begins many of his “essays” with a serious reflection. But as the essay goes on Kocher drifts into different zones of joy and terror that dissipate the original intent of his essays. Indeed, his drifting shows us that he often has little to no interest in the things that […]
Since I was a little child, the meaning of friendship has always been on my mind. Like many people, I was vulnerable and found that by being honest, trusting, and open to strangers I also invited people to take advantage of me. But, regardless of the negativity I experienced when I was taken advantage of, […]
In an essay on Moses Maimonides entitled “The Literary Character of The Guide to the Perplexed,” Leo Strauss suggests that we read Maimonides as we would read a good novel: we should look for textual contradictions and read into the relationship of one “chapter heading” to another. In other words, he believed that Maimonides was […]
When people ask me if one can find any characters like the schlemiel in other traditions, I immediately think of Robert Walser. Indeed, I can think of no better example of the schlemiel than in his fiction. I can also think of no better person to write such fiction since he, too, was a schlemiel, […]
While writing on Franz Kafka, the Jewish-German thinker Walter Benjamin was interested in finding common ground between Jewish and non-Jewish comic characters. We see this project in his notes and in his essay on Kafka’s work. To be sure, the essay starts with a reflection on a Russian fool named Shuvalkin; but it also includes […]
I arrived in Budapest last Thursday and on Friday I started my Graduate Seminar on “The Schlemiel in European Literature and Culture” at the Ashkenazium Program (which includes several notable Jewish Studies, Philosophy, and Literature scholars on its faculty such as Elliot Wolfson, Paul Franks, Shaul Magid, Peter Trawny, Susan Handelman, etc.) To give an […]
The relationship with things and the loss of those things is something that fascinated great thinkers and writers from Walter Benjamin and Freud to Franz Kafka and Elias Canetti. What is the meaning of loss and how does it relates to the character of the person that constantly loses things as opposed to losing things […]
Philosophers, mystics, and schlemiels have something in common. They are all, in some way, detached from the world and aloof. In Plato’s Theaetetus, there is a telling tale about a Thracian servant girl who laughs at Thales, the philosopher; who, while gazing at the stars, falls down a well. Socrates Why, take the case of […]
Kevin Hart is well known for his self-depreciating kind of embodied comedy. His intense facial gestures which come one after another in rapid fire show a person who is struggling not just to articulate himself but to be accepted. He never misses an opportunity to show that although he is the smallest guy in the […]
Schlemiel Theory 