Commentary
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     The time is now for intellectual and moral clarity

      Fire Canada’s House Speaker

     Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine and the West’s Abject Failure to Protect

     Online Antisemitism: How Can We Regulate Content?

     Diaspora Jewry: A Hostage to the Conflict

    The Future of Antisemitism
   
    George Steiner: Remembrancer, 1929-2020

    Faked Hate Crimes, Antisemitism, and Linda Sarsour

    There Were No Polish Death Camps

    Antisemitism 2015: A Global Challenge

     Don't Say the Paris Supermarket Attack Had Nothing To Do With Antisemitism

     The Truth About Auschwitz

      How to Avoid a Victimization Olympics

     Obama's Well-Intentioned Rhetoric Is Disconnected from Reality
         
      We Need A Responsible Timeline for Canada's Refugee Commitment
          
      The Western Double Standard on Terror in Israel Must Stop

      The War Against the Holocaust

      Interview with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR)

       A History of Israel Apartheid Week

      The Holocaust was Not An Interfaith Experience

       Art Sleuths on Nazi Trail

      A Critique of Holocaust Universalization in Honour of Anne Frank

      Antisemitism and the Holocaust: The Historical Connection

      Thoughts on a Visit to Warsaw

       New Jewish Museum to Open Next Year in Warsaw

       Vienna: City of Paradox

       Jerusalem Vignettes

       Why We Do Not Spell Antisemitism With A Hyphen

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National Jewish Book Award Finalist 

Disenchantment: George Steiner and the Meaning of Western Civilization After Auschwitz   Syracuse Series on Religion, Theology, and the Holocaust (Syracuse University Press, 2011)

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George Steiner has enjoyed international acclaim as a distinguished cultural critic for many years. The son of central European Jews, he was born in France, fled from the Nazis to New York in 1940, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1944. Through his many books, voluminous literary criticism, and book review articles published in the New Yorker, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Guardian, Steiner has played a major role in introducing the works of prominent continental writers and thinkers to readers in North America and Great Britain. 

Having escaped the Nazis as a child, Steiner vowed that his work as an intellectual would attempt to understand the tragedy of the Shoah. In Disenchantment, Chatterley focuses on Steiner's neglected writings on the Holocaust and antisemitism and places this work at the center of her analysis of his criticism. She clearly demonstrates how Steiner's family history and education, as well as the historical and cultural developments that surrounded him, are central to the evolution of his dominant intellectual concerns. It is during the 1950s and 1960s, in relation to unfolding discoveries about the Nazi murder of European Jewry, that Steiner begins to study the effects of the Holocaust on language and culture and then questions the very purpose and meaning of the humanities. 

The first intellectual biography of George Steiner, Disenchantment provides an invaluable contribution to literary and cultural studies, confirming his critical and intellectual legacy.


Reviews

"Dr Chatterley has written the first comprehensive account of George Steiner's influential oeuvre spanning more than half a century. Disenchantment rightly focuses on Steiner's compelling idea of a western 'post-culture' after Auschwitz. Her theme is developed with lucidity and sophistication in relation to Steiner's biography and fiction, his theories of translation, and, above all, his cultural criticism inspired by The Frankfurt School. The book should be read by anyone interested in post-Holocaust thought."   

Bryan Cheyette, Chair in Modern Literature, University of Reading, UK

"This lucidly-written, insightful book on the work of George Steiner is long-overdue. Chatterley demonstrates the profound and lasting effects of the Shoah on one of its seminal interpreters. Her study is essential reading for anyone interested in the life and work of one of our most important living critics."    

Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Professor of English and Jewish Studies, Indiana University

"Catherine Chatterley's book on George Steiner performs an essential service. It is at once a close reading of a diverse and compelling body of cultural and literary criticism and a corrective to a great load of nonsense that has too often been lavished upon Steiner's work. Alert to the controversy generated by particular essays and books, Chatterley has kept her eye chiefly on Steiner's own formulations and seen to the heart of the dark yet generous vision informing the work of a writer who emerges, in her telling, as a compelling and indispensable thinker."

Robert Boyers, Professor of English & Editor of SALMAGUNDI, Skidmore College

"Catherine Chatterley provides an illuminating examination of George Steiner's life and work on language and literature. An important contribution to literary and cultural studies, Disenchantment traces important intellectual influences and the impact of the Holocaust on George Steiner's thinking and confirms his critical and intellectual legacy."

S. Lillian Kremer, Professor Emerita of English, Kansas State University
 
"Focusing on the centrality of the Holocaust to Steiner's understanding of language, literature, hermeneutics, and the fate of Western culture, Chatterley provides an admirably clear introduction to the biographical context and trajectory of Steiner's immense -- and immensely important -- oeuvre."                                         

Ronald A. Sharp, Professor of English, Vassar College

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