Identity and alienation in Coming From Behind: a Jewish intellectual in academy

Abstract

This study analyzes Howard Jacobson’s campus novel, Coming From Behind (1983) in terms of its protagonist’s struggle in academic life and the reasons and outcomes of that struggle. The protagonist, Sefton Goldberg is a Jewish British academic of English literature. His disappointments in his career and his relationships with other academics and his students, when evaluated through an existentialist point of view, as this study suggests, reveal much about a Jewish intellectual’s psychology and his position in academic world, as well as the condition of humanities and literature departments and how they are viewed in the contemporary university life. As a Jewish scholar and an intellectual, Goldberg is sure that his identity plays an important role in his academic career, personal relationships and psychology. Goldberg believes that his identity is the main reason behind his supposed alienation in the academic world. This study examines whether Goldberg has the standards that an intellectual should have according to philosophers and authors like Antonio Gramsci, J.P. Sartre and Edward Said. Secondly, the study focuses on how this intellectuality of Goldberg helps him to cope with the supposed alienation he faces because of his identity. Finally, this study sheds light on the problematic academic life of a Jewish British scholar through the lens of an existentialist view and argues that Goldberg’s identity can only be a hindrance on his path to success and happiness, not an absolute obstacle.

Keywords

• Campus Novel
• Identity
• Alienation
• Howard Jacobson
• Existentialism

References

1. Brauner, D. (2001). Post-War Jewish fiction: Ambivalence, self-explanation and transatlantic connections. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
2. Brook, S. (1989). The Club: The Jews of modern Britain. London: Constable.
3. Cohen, J. (1986). Reviewed work(s): Coming from behind by Howard Jacobson Review by: Joseph Cohen. Shofar, Spring, 4 (3), 42-44. Purdue UP. https://www.jstor.org./stable/42940800
4. Gramsci, A. (1992). The prison notebooks: Selections (Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Trans.). NYC, NY: International Publishers. (Original work published 1947)
5. Jacobson, H. (1993). Coming From Behind. London: Penguin. (Original work published 1983)
6. Jacobson, H. (1993). Wondering Jew. Interview by Melissa Clinton Davis. New Moon.
7. Jacobson, H. (1999). Meeting his metier?: A conversation with Natasha Lehrer. Jewish Quarterly, 46.3, Autumn: 67–70.
8. Monnickendam, A. (1989). The comic academic novel, Barcelona English language and Literature Studies, 2:2: 153-172.

9. Oral History (2011), Current British work. Past and Present, (39.2) 5-24. Oral History Society. https://www.jstor.org./stable/41332160
10. Said, E. (1996). Representations of the intellectual. NYC, NY: Vintage. (Original work published 1994)
11. Sartre, J. P. (1988). What is literature? and other essays. (Bernard Frechtman, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP. (Original work published 1948)
12. Sartre, J.P. (1965). Essays in existentialism. Wade Baskin Ed. Secaucus, NJ: The Citadel Press.
13. Stavans, I. (1998). The Oxford book of Jewish stories. Oxford: Oxford UP.