Foucault and Jews

Foucault wrote a pretty baller essay about all the factors that culminate in producing authors, and, more specifically, how we think about/view them. He mentions Freud and Marx directly, and expounds on how they are more than just authors, but ideas, philosophies, whole encompassing dialectics. This can be seen in the way we deem things "Freudian" or "Marxist." Strangely enough, Marx said he wasn't a Marxist, and when we call Lacan "Freudian" it diminishes the former's impact. Freudian is recognized as a word by spell check; Lacan's formal name, however, is not.

Shakespeare "embodies" (or represents) a similar position - a precarious one, though, as he writes fiction. Shakespeare differs, too: I wouldn't say he has his own dialectic and theories. But his impact is tremendous and he is an icon, an institution, maybe.

Our professor challenged us to name writers as important: I would posit Kafka and maybe Proust.

Observation: all these men are Jews.

Analysis: it is not important that they are Jews per se, but it is important that it's not important; they are products of assimilation. They ALL epitomize The West: more than being Jewish, they are European.

Of course, these men were all conscious of their Jewishness, and it played a (albeit minor) role in their lives. Marx (or Engels, it doesn't matter) wrote "On The Jewish Question"; Freud said something about being proud of his Jewishness yet highly critical of religion (like Marx/Engels); Kafka had his famous quote about Yiddish; Proust - well...I don't know much about Proust. I know he experienced anti-Semitism, but that might be due to his upper class position. He probably had something to say about that whole Dreyfus debacle.

I am reading an relevant Ozick (omg, LOVE her) essay right now....