Paul Eisenstein, Ph.D.

Interests

I am most drawn as a teacher to the place where literature, philosophy, and history intersect. What I find intellectually illuminating and empowering is the way philosophers like Kant or Hegel or Heidegger, or philosophies like Marxism or psychoanalysis, can help us to make sense of a work of literature or film or a cultural phenomenon-and how they continue to speak to 21st century concerns and the possibilities for social change. My specific teaching and writing interests include literature since 1945, Holocaust literature, Literary and Critical Theory, and Film Studies. I am a visible participant in the Honors Program at Otterbein, and I am also a founding member of the Program in Critical Theory at Otterbein. I have recently published essays on romantic love in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, on teaching Elie Wiesel's Night, and on the sacrificial ethic portrayed in John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. In 2003, I published a book entitled Traumatic Encounters: Holocaust Representation and the Hegelian Subject (SUNY Press), and I am currently at work on another book-length project that treats literary texts that approach the Holocaust in deliberately unrealistic or fantastic ways.

Courses

Education

1996: Ph.D., English: The Ohio State University
1991: M.A., English: The Ohio State University
1989: B.A., English: The Ohio State University

Publications

Book

Traumatic Encounters: Holocaust Representation and the Hegelian Subject
(State University of New York Press, 2003).

Essays & Articles

"Ambivalent Kabbalah: Myla Goldberg's Bee Season and the Vicissitudes of Jewish Mysticism." Interdisciplinary Literary Studies: A Journal of Criticism and Theory, forthcoming.

"Imperfect Masters: Rabbinic Authority in Joann Sfar's The Rabbi's Cat." The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches. Eds. Ranen Omer-Sherman and Samantha Baskin, Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers UP, forthcoming.

"Devouring Holes: Darren Aronosfky's Requiem for a Dream and the Tectonics of Psychoanalysis." International Journal of Žižek Studies 1.3 (Autumn 2007): 1- 23.

"Night and Critical Thinking." Approaches to Teaching Elie Wiesel's Night. Ed. Alan Rosen. New York: Modern Language Association, 2007. 107-114.

"On the Ethics of Sanctified Sacrifice: John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany." LIT: Literature, Interpretation, Theory 17.1 (January-March 2006): 1-21.

"Visions and Numbers: Aronofsky's  and the Primordial Signifier." Lacan and Contemporary Film. Eds. Sheila Kunkle and Todd McGowan. New York: The Other Press, 2004. 1-28.

"Holocaust Memory and Hegel." History and Memory. 11.2 (Winter 1999): 5-36.
"Universalizing the Jew: The Absolute as Antidote for Paranoia." Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society. 3.2 (Fall 1998): 61-70.

"Working-Through Professional Fantasy: Changing the Myths We Live By" (with Ken Petri). Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association. 31.3 (Spring 1998): 45-64.

"Leverkühn as Witness: The Holocaust in Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus." German Quarterly 70.4 (Fall 1997): 325-346.

"Finding Lost Generations: Recovering Omitted History in Winter in the Blood." MELUS 19.3 (Fall 1994): 3-18.

Reviews

Rev. of Six Modernist Moments in Poetry, by David Young. Ohioana Quarterly 49.3 (Fall 2006): 177-78.

Rev. of Committed to Memory: Cultural Mediations of the Holocaust, by Oren Baruch Stier. Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. 23.4 (Summer 2005): 148-150.

Rev. of The Holocaust in Salonika: Eyewitness Accounts, edited by Steven Bowman. Ohioana Quarterly 48.1 (Spring 2005): 46-47.

Sampling of Papers and Presentations

"The Problem of Artifice in Holocaust Literature." Bexley Education Foundation Annual Holocaust Scholar-in-Residence Lecture, Columbus, OH. May 2007.

"Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated and the Radical Freedom of Memory." Trajectories of Memory: Intergenerational Representations of the Holocaust in History and the Arts. Bowling Green, OH. March 2006.

"Ambivalent Kabbalah: Myla Goldberg's Bee Season and the Vicissitudes of Jewish Mysticism." Modern Language Association, Washington, D.C. December 2005.

"'Some Shred of Evidence': Narrative Forensics in Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides." Narrative: An International Conference. Burlington, VT. April 2004.

"Just Numbers: Darren Aronofsky's  and the Canonization of the Symbolic Order." Modern Language Association. Washington, D.C. December 2000.

"Beyond the Vale of Meaning: The Christian Act in John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany." South Central MLA, San Antonio, TX. November 2000.

"Religious Identity and the Trauma of Memory: The Case of Schindler's List." Ohio Academy of Religion, Columbus, OH. February, 1997.

"Taming the Real: The Alien and the Enigma in the Films of Steven Spielberg." Midwest MLA, Minneapolis, MN. November, 1996.

"The Stupidity of Identity: Žižek, Paranoia and Historical Memory." Modern Language Association. Chicago, IL. December, 1995.

Related Teaching & Professional Experience

Bexley Education Foundation Holocaust Scholar-in-Residence-Bexley High School: May 13-14, 2007.
Faculty Advisor for Aegis: The Otterbein College Humanities Journal, Autumn 2004-Spring 2006
Member of Professional Learning Community for Undergraduate Research- Center for Teaching and Learning: 2004-05.
Annual address on Literature of the Holocaust for the Governor's Council on Holocaust Education (a summer workshop for elementary and secondary school teachers), 1994-1996Fellowships and Awards

Fellowships & Awards

2008 Humanities Advisory Committee Summer Writing Grant ($1,000) for essay in progress: "Holocaust Fantastic: Elective Belief and the Writing of History in Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated."