Roman Katsman

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Roman Katsman (born 1969) is an Israeli researcher of Hebrew and Russian literature, Professor of the Department of Literature of the Jewish People in Bar-Ilan University.

Biography

Katsman was born in Zhitomir (Ukraine) on 26 November 1969. He has lived in Israel from 1990. Ph.D. (Cum Laude) from Bar-Ilan University in 1999. The title of the dissertation: “Mythopoesis: Theory, Method and Application in the Selected Works by Dostoevsky and Agnon.” From 2000 Katsman has taught at the Department of Literature of the Jewish People in Bar-Ilan University. From October 2014 he has served as the Head of the Department. Roman Katsman is married and has two children.

Research

Mythopoesis

The first book The Time of Cruel Miracles (2002)[1] is dedicated to developing a theory of mythopoesis, of how myth is created through the act of reading the literary text. Myth is defined (following Alexei Losev)[2] as a miraculous history of personality given in words (the miracle in this case being perceived as the realization of the personality’s transcendental purpose in empirical history). Based on the Emmanuel Levinas concept of revelation,[3] a theory is proposed in which mythopoesis is seen as the personality’s becoming towards its miracle in an ethical face-to-face encounter with another personality. A method for the study of literary mythopoesis is constructed on the foundation of this theory of mythopoesis.

Chaos theory

This project continues in the direction of a theory of the literary figure as a mythopoeic personality. A dialogue with the René Girard[4] and Eric Gans[5] anthropological-philosophical theories has been developed, according to which a sign (in language and culture in general) is created in an originary scene of violence or prevention of violence towards a central personality (the victim), as a substitute for it. In this research, Girard’s and Gans’ theory is complemented with a theory of mythopoesis, according to which the personality’s transformation into a sign is accompanied by a simultaneous process whereby the sign is transformed into a personality (this is the process of myth-creation). The two processes are treated as unified and feeding each other within a complex dynamic system. The system is then examined in terms of chaos theory. The discussion leads to the conclusion that the figure’s origination is a chaotic system, characterized also by features of an autopoetic (living) system, in terms of the Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela biological-cognitive theory.[6] The book Poetics of Becoming (2005) is dedicated to this research, in which the theory of mythopoesis in its expanded form is examined through the works of Hebrew and Russian writers, including Agnon, Amos Oz, Meir Shalev, Orly Castel-Bloom, Etgar Keret, Dostoevsky, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Osip Mandelstam.[7] The works by Isaac Babel and Mandelstam are discussed in the context of multi-culturalism and bi-national literature, leading to a new definition of Jewish-Russian literature.

Gestures

The book At the Other End of Gesture (2008) is devoted to the problem of gestures (body language) in literature.[8] Based on recent advances in the modern science of gesture (Adam Kendon, David McNeill, Uri Hadar and others)[9][10] a cognitive model is constructed of the processing of gestures in the course of reading a literary text, and a method is developed for an interdisciplinary study of the representation of gesture in text, from poetic, cultural, anthropological and semiological aspects. A series of discussions concerning the poetics of gesture in the writings of a number of modern Hebrew writers (Uri Nissan Gnessin, Isaac Dov Berkowitz, Yeshayahu Bershadsky, Gershon Shofman, Agnon, Jacob Steinberg, Etgar Keret, Judith Katzir, Meir Shalev, Aharon Appelfeld, Dorit Rabinyan) leads to far-reaching conclusions concerning their poetics and concerning the philosophy of gesture in modern culture. This study also examines how gesture functions as anthropological motive for creating art, and as one of the mechanisms whereby symbolism is created.

Some studies which have not been included in the last book are the following: spontaneous gestures in the Bible;[11] gestures accompanying the reading/learning of the Torah among Yemenite Jews (a study at the crossroads between the science of gesture, visual anthropology and the anthropology of the body);[12] a study on gestural practices in Jewish religious life;[13] studies on gesture in the writings of Milorad Pavić as the key to his poetics (in his two major novels, Dictionary of the Khazars and Landscape Painted with Tea');[14] a study on gesture in Dostoevsky's The Idiot in relation to the theme of man/body as machine.[15]

Sincerity

A Small Prophecy (2013)[16] is a theoretical and applied research of sincerity as rhetorical and cultural, lingual and anthropological category.[17] Sincerity and rhetoric provide two ways for constituting a personality (subject, identity, character) in the speech. They complement each other till their complete confluence in the intention of persuasion. Two opposite conceptions of sincerity – as genuine self-expression and as artificial “theatrical” performance – are presented as not effective, especially in such complex cultural phenomena as S.Y. Agnon’s work. In the first part of the research, the analysis of sincere speech as rhetorical act leads to discussion of the rhetoric itself and to its repositioning in cultural-spiritual practice. By this course, the concept of cultural-communal rhetoric of sincerity has been shaped, which is applied to resolving the intricate problems roused within Agnon studies, particularly the problem of author’s sincerity in representation of miracle, his religious or anti religious intentions. In the second part, the Book One of ‘Ir u-mlo’a is discussed, focusing on the Agnon rhetoric and on what is called “Agnon’s lessons in rhetoric and sincerity”. The analysis brings out that Agnon’s impossible, multi-intentional discourse on “the impossible” is aimed to scrutinize the realized possibilities of the historical existence of the Jewish community (on the scale from Buchach to the People of Israel), and to create new, not realized possibilities – the most mythic and true ones.

Alternative history

The book Literature, History, Choice (2013)[18] deals with one of the most popular subjects in the recent literature and cinematography – alternative (counterfactual, allo-history).[19] Alternative history is not merely the definition of a historiographic method and of a subgenre of fantasy literature, but it is rather also a poetic and hermeneutical principle. One may discover foundations of the alternative history principle in works that have no connection at all to fantasy genres. In this case, one must speak of the poetics of historical alternative. Even when the work makes no overt use of the poetics of historical alternativity, the principle of historical alternativity can be used as a method of reading, that is, as a hermeneutic principle, which is used to reveal implicit historiographical and historical perceptions on which the poetics and ideology of the work are based. What makes it possible to speak of alternative history in such a sweeping sense is the observation that alternative history is not just oscillation between different histories but rather oscillation between alternative elements at four levels: myth (plot); personality (identity); choice (perception of history), and mode of choice (historiographical view). The mechanism of oscillation is identical at all of the levels and it consists of a return to the point of bifurcation in the past and a free choice of the new future. However, at every level, the historical, ethical, cultural and personalistic significance of the oscillation is different because at every level, different elements may be chosen. Thus, analysis of an implicit historical and historiographical discourse, which underlies every work of literature, is carried out using a multi-layered method.

The main point is that oscillation at each of these levels is what establishes the choice, as well as the subject and object of that choice. Without oscillation between unrealized possibilities, there can be no myth, no personality, no history, and no historiography. The oscillation does not happen after the poles of oscillation have been determined but is in fact what creates them. This oscillation is what creates the alternatives and not the other way around. Rhetoric is the internal mechanism that creates oscillation, and thus – creates the historical alternativity. To speak of alternative history is to speak of a mechanism for establishing meaning – of narrative, of personality, of memory, and of writing. Based on this, establishing meaning is a historical and personalistic creation, and thus it is an act of establishing ethics and of establishing truth.

Alternative history as a genre, as well as the principle of historical alternativity, is based on the implicit (and largely unconscious) metaphysical premise of the existence of a historical truth and of the possibility of proving it. Therefore this principle is not a postmodern or relativistic element but rather the opposite is true: alternative history was intended to repair the damage caused to culture by radical relativism which is characteristic of certain periods and ideologies, particularly postmodernism.

Agnon’s oeuvre, and Ir u-meloa (The City and All It Has in It) in particular, is presented then as a classic example not only of historical writing but also of the poetics of historical alternativity. This research method is applied to Agnon’s work in order to understand the complex philosophical-historical perceptions of the author. Both the theoretical analysis and the analysis of the works show that the nucleus of historical alternativity contains the question: “How does one choose?” or in other words, “How does one write (history)?” – this is the dilemma where oscillation between different historiographical perceptions unites with oscillation between different perceptions of writing on the one hand, and with oscillation between different ethical perceptions (i.e. concerning identity, memory, responsibility) on the other.

Russian literature in Israel

The book Nostalgia for a Foreign Land (2016)[20] focuses on the last two and half decades of the history of Russian literature in Israel, and particularly on several novelists among many who immigrated to Israel with the “big wave” of repatriation in 1990s, and whose largest part of the works was written in Israel: Dina Rubina, Nekoda Singer, Elizaveta Mikhailichenko and Yuri Nesis, and Mikhail Yudson. They are popular and active authors on the Israeli scene, in the printed and electronic media. Singer[21] and Yudson[22] are also editors of the renowned journals and authors of literary and cultural reviews and essays. In spite of the evident differences in their styles, lingual and aesthetic visions, these five writers are united by the same essential feature: free play of the Jewish-Russian mentality, Jewish-Israeli identity, and Russian-Israeli culture. They search for the new indigeneity and find it in the metaphysical nomadism, multiplicity, network, or untranslatability. They constitute a new generation of Jewish-Russian writers: diasporic Russians and (pseudo-)indigenous Israelis.

Publications

Books

Edited

Articles

Translations

Into Russian

Into Hebrew

References

  1. ↑ Katsman, Roman (2002). The Time of Cruel Miracles: Mythopoesis in Dostoevsky and Agnon. Peter Lang. ISBN 9783631377673.
  2. ↑ Losev, Alexei (2003). The Dialectics of Myth. Routledge.
  3. ↑ Levinas, Emmanuel (1994). Beyond the Verse: Talmudic Readings and Lectures. Continuum. pp. 127–147.
  4. ↑ Girard, Rene (1979). Violence and the Sacred. Johns Hopkins University Press.
  5. ↑ Gans, Eric (2011). A New Way of Thinking: Generative Anthropology in Religion, Philosophy, Art. The Davies Group.
  6. ↑ Maturana, Humberto; Varela, Francisco (1980). Autopoesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. D. Reidel Publishing Company.
  7. ↑ Katsman, Roman (2005). Poetics of Becoming: Dynamic Processes of Mythopoesis in Modern and Postmodern Hebrew and Slavic Literature. Peter Lang.
  8. ↑ Katsman, Roman (2008). At the Other End of Gesture. Anthropological Poetics of Gesture in Modern Hebrew Literature. Peter Lang.
  9. ↑ Kendon, Adam (2004). Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance. Cambridge University Press.
  10. ↑ McNeill, David (1992). Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought. The University of Chicago Press.
  11. ↑ Katsman, Roman (2008). "The Problem of Spontaneous Gestures in the Bible. A Case Study of Gestural Poetics (in Hebrew)". Mikan. 9: 80–96.
  12. ↑ Katsman, Roman (2007). "Gestures Accompanying Torah Learning/Recital Among Yemenite Jews". Gesture: The International Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Gestures and Nonverbal Communication. 7:1: 1–19.
  13. ↑ Katsman, Roman (2013). "Jewish Traditions: Active Gestural Practices in Religious Life". Body-Language-Communication. An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction. 1: 320–329.
  14. ↑ Katsman, Roman (2005). "Anthropoetic Gesture. A Key to Milorad Pavić’s Poetics (Landscape Painted with Tea)". Toronto Slavic Quarterly. 12.
  15. ↑ Katsman, Roman (2008). "An Invisible Gesture of A Jester: Body and Machine in The Idiot by F.M. Dostoevsky". Toronto Slavic Quarterly. 26.
  16. ↑ Katsman, Roman (2013). ‘A Small Prophecy’: Sincerity and Rhetoric in Ir u-meloa by S.Y. Agnon (in Hebrew). Bar-Ilan University Press.
  17. ↑ See also: Ernst van Alphen, Mieke Bal, and Carel E. Smith, eds. (2008). The Rhetoric of Sincerity. Stanford University Press.
  18. ↑ Katsman, Roman (2013). Literature, History, Choice: The Principle of Alternative History in Literature. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  19. ↑ See for example: Rosenfeld, Gavriel D. (2005). The World Hitler Never Made. Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism. Cambridge University Press.
  20. ↑ Katsman, Roman (2016). Nostalgia for a Foreign Land: Studies in Russian-Language Literature in Israel. Academic Studies Press.
  21. ↑ "Dvoetochie (journal)".
  22. ↑ "Article (journal)".
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