Explores the symbolic presence of "Jews or Jewishness" in modern Latin American literature.

While Jews figure in the work of many modern Latin American writers, the questions of how and to what end they are represented have received remarkably little critical attention. Helping to correct this imbalance, Erin Graff Zivin traces the symbolic presence of Jews and Jewishness in late-nineteenth- through late-twentieth-century literary works from Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, and Nicaragua. Ultimately, Graff Zivin’s investigation of representations of Jewishness reveals a broader, more complex anxiety surrounding difference in modern Latin American culture.

In her readings of Spanish American and Brazilian fiction, Graff Zivin highlights inventions of Jewishness in which the concept is constructed as a rhetorical device. She argues that Jewishness functions as a wandering signifier that while not wholly empty, can be infused with meaning based on the demands of the textual project in question. Just as Jews in Latin America possess distinct histories relative to their European and North American counterparts, they also occupy different symbolic spaces in the cultural landscape. Graff Zivin suggests that in Latin American fiction, anxiety, desire, paranoia, attraction, and repulsion toward Jewishness are always either in tension with or representative of larger attitudes toward otherness, whether racial, sexual, religious, national, economic, or metaphysical. She concludes The Wandering Signifier with an inquiry into whether it is possible to ethically represent the other within the literary text, or whether the act of representation necessarily involves the objectification of the other.

"“The Wandering Signifier fills a void in the fields of Latin American and Jewish studies with an original, intelligent, and well-researched study of the problems of representing constructions of Jewish identity from a cultural, ideological, racial, and political perspective. . . . Thanks to her sophisticated analysis of the difficult problem of representation of alterity in Latin American literature and her novel perspective on the uses of the concepts of ‘Jew’ and ‘Jewishness’ in this body of literature, The Wandering Signifier makes an important contribution to Jewish and Latin American Studies scholarship and to the field of cultural studies in general.”" - Hispanic Review

"“The Wandering Signifier makes an important and much-needed contribution to Latin American literary studies. The book develops a series of thematic explorations that have previously been understudied in this field, while also making a convincing argument as to the importance of Jewishness for Latin American literary and social history. Moreover, Graff Zivin’s readings are enlivened by her sophisticated grasp of difficult theoretical debates (Levinas and Derrida in particular). . . . [I]n The Wandering Signifier Graff Zivin has established a new and vital bridge between two fields that have avoided sustained consideration of their points in common for too long now.”" - Shofar

"“As a comprehensive analysis of the rhetoric of Jewishness, with emphasis on literary theory, The Wandering Signifier should be of interest to students of Latin American, Cultural and Jewish Studies.”" - Bulletin of Latin American Research

"“In this original and profound study, Graff Zivin raises deep philosophical and methodological concerns. . . . It is here, in the third section that concludes the book, where the importance of Graff Zivin’s work lies, raising the discussion of Jewishness to a completely new level.”" - EIAL