Why are ‘negative’ feelings such as self-hatred, guilt, resentment, paranoia, hysteria, and overbearing mother-love characterised as ‘Jewish’? In her sparkling debut, Devorah Baum delves into film, fiction and psychoanalysis. In so-doing, she explores what it’s like to be a Jewish woman, shining a light on cultural icons from Groucho Marx to Freud, to examine what it’s like to feel Jewish, even when you’re not.

Devorah Baum is Lecturer in English Literature and Critical Theory at the University of Southampton and affiliate of the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations. She has recently published two critically acclaimed books: Feeling Jewish and The Jewish Joke.

Josh Cohen is Professor of Modern Literary Theory at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a psychoanalyst in private practice. He is the author of several books, including The Private Life: Why We Remain in the Dark.