Amir Eshel
Edward Clark Crossett Professor of Humanistic Studies and Professor of Comparative Literature
Bio
Amir Eshel is Edward Clark Crossett Professor of Humanistic Studies. He is Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature and as of 2019 Director of Comparative Literature and its graduate program. His Stanford affiliations include The Taube Center for Jewish Studies, Modern Thought & Literature, and The Europe Center at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also the faculty director of Stanford’s research group on The Contemporary and of the Poetic Media Lab at Stanford’s Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA). His research focuses on contemporary literature and the arts as they touch on philosophy, specifically on memory, history, political thought, and ethics.
Amir Eshel is the author of Poetic Thinking Today (Stanford University Press, 2019); German translation at Suhrkamp Verlag, 2020). Previous books include Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the Past (The University of Chicago Press in 2013). The German version of the book, Zukünftigkeit: Die zeitgenössische Literatur und die Vergangenheit, appeared in 2012 with Suhrkamp Verlag. Together with Rachel Seelig, he co-edited The German-Hebrew Dialogue: Studies of Encounter and Exchange (2018). In 2014, he co-edited with Ulrich Baer a book of essays on Hannah Arendt, Hannah Arendt: zwischen den Disziplinen; and also co-edited a book of essays on Barbara Honigmann with Yfaat Weiss, Kurz hinter der Wahrheit und dicht neben der Lüge (2013).
Earlier scholarship includes the books Zeit der Zäsur: Jüdische Lyriker im Angesicht der Shoah (1999), and Das Ungesagte Schreiben: Israelische Prosa und das Problem der Palästinensischen Flucht und Vertreibung (2006). Amir Eshel has also published essays on Franz Kafka, Hannah Arendt, Paul Celan, Dani Karavan, Gerhard Richter, W.G. Sebald, Günter Grass, Alexander Kluge, Barbara Honigmann, Durs Grünbein, Dan Pagis, S. Yizhar, and Yoram Kaniyuk.
Amir Eshel’s poetry includes a 2018 book with the artist Gerhard Richter, Zeichnungen/רישומים, a work which brings together 25 drawings by Richter from the clycle 40 Tage and Eshel’s bi-lingual poetry in Hebrew and German. In 2020, Mossad Bialik brings his Hebrew poetry collection בין מדבר למדבר, Between Deserts.
Amir Eshel is a recipient of fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt and the Friedrich Ebert foundations and received the Award for Distinguished Teaching from the School of Humanities and Sciences.
Academic Appointments
-
Professor, Comparative Literature
-
Professor, German Studies
-
Professor, Comparative Literature
Program Affiliations
-
Modern Thought and Literature
-
Philosophy and Literature
Projects
-
Poetic Media Lab, CESTA, Stanford University
The Poetic Media Lab is a Digital Humanities research and design group based in the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) at Stanford. We design and build creative platforms that promote new ways of conducting research, teaching, and learning in the 21st century.
Location
Stanford, CA
-
The Contemporary, Stanford University
A workshop to examine present-day society, culture, and politics with a focus on defining moments such as: 1945, 1973, 1989, 2001 and 2020. In recent years the concept of the contemporary has been taken up within limited disciplinary discourses and in the context of distinct geographical settings. The horizon of this workshop, however, is the global. We employ a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to the hybrid term “contemporary” as it intersects various fields and serves as a heuristic device to understand phenomena in politics, culture, and the arts.
Location
Stanford, CA
2024-25 Courses
- Graduate Studies Colloquium
COMPLIT 397 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Redemption and Jewish Modernity
COMPLIT 258, GERMAN 258, JEWISHST 258 (Spr) - Senior Seminar
COMPLIT 199 (Win) - Wonder: The Event of Art and Literature
ARTHIST 274, ARTHIST 474, COMPLIT 274, COMPLIT 374A, JEWISHST 274 (Win) -
Independent Studies (1)
- Individual Work
GERMAN 399 (Aut, Win, Spr)
- Individual Work
-
Prior Year Courses
2022-23 Courses
- Martin Heidegger: Off the Beaten Track
COMPLIT 266, COMPLIT 363, GERMAN 276 (Win) - Myth and Modernity
COMPLIT 222A, GERMAN 222, GERMAN 322, JEWISHST 242G, JEWISHST 342 (Spr) - Rainer Maria Rilke: Poetry and the Meaning of Life
COMPLIT 240, GERMAN 130, GERMAN 233 (Spr) - The Contemporary
DLCL 229 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Wonder: The Event of Art and Literature
ARTHIST 274, ARTHIST 474 (Win) - Wonder: The Event of Art and Literature
COMPLIT 374, GERMAN 274 (Win) - Wonder: The Event of Art and Literature
JEWISHST 274 (Win)
2021-22 Courses
- Hope in the Modern Age
COMPLIT 287, GERMAN 287, JEWISHST 287 (Aut) - Masterpieces: Kafka
COMPLIT 114, GERMAN 150, JEWISHST 145 (Aut) - Modern Notions of 'The Holy'
COMPLIT 283A, COMPLIT 383A, GERMAN 283A, GERMAN 383A, RELIGST 283A, RELIGST 383A (Win) - Paul Celan: The Poetic Event
COMPLIT 263B, GERMAN 263, GERMAN 363, JEWISHST 263 (Win) - The Contemporary
DLCL 229 (Aut, Win, Spr)
- Martin Heidegger: Off the Beaten Track
Stanford Advisees
-
Doctoral Dissertation Reader (AC)
Anna Galietti, Amber Harper, Ido Keren -
Doctoral Dissertation Advisor (AC)
Gilad Shiram -
Doctoral (Program)
Ariel Horowitz, Gilad Shiram
All Publications
-
German and Hebrew: Histories of a Conversation
PROOFTEXTS-A JOURNAL OF JEWISH LITERARY HISTORY
2013; 33 (1): 1-8
View details for Web of Science ID 000333570600001
-
Between spontaneity and reflection: Reconsidering Jewish modernism - Introduction
MODERNISM-MODERNITY
2006; 13 (4): 607-614
View details for Web of Science ID 000242153100001
-
Special issue on: Paul Celan - Introduction
NEW GERMAN CRITIQUE
2004: 5-14
View details for Web of Science ID 000225338600001
-
Paul Celans' other: History, poetics, and ethics
NEW GERMAN CRITIQUE
2004: 57-77
View details for Web of Science ID 000225338600005
-
Against the power of time: The poetics of suspension in W.G. Sebald's 'Austerlitz'
NEW GERMAN CRITIQUE
2003: 71-96
View details for Web of Science ID 000186552700005
-
Wolfgang Hildesheimer's life as a Jew and a German (Book Review)
GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW
2002; 25 (1): 193-194
View details for Web of Science ID 000174244600072
-
Judaism and aesthetic sense
MERKUR-DEUTSCHE ZEITSCHRIFT FUR EUROPAISCHES DENKEN
2002; 56 (2): 162-168
View details for Web of Science ID 000173917400009
-
Diverging memories? Durs Grunbein's mnemonic topographies and the future of the German past
GERMAN QUARTERLY
2001; 74 (4): 407-416
View details for Web of Science ID 000174149800007
-
The 'Crime of Writing' (Book Review)
MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE
2000: 41-43
View details for Web of Science ID 000083830700017
-
"The rest remains": Essays on Judaism (Book Review)
GERMANIC REVIEW
1998; 73 (4): 370-374
View details for Web of Science ID 000078410800006