Sunday, January 30, 2011

Literary Paris

I decided to take a break from a dissertation-filled weekend and walk the apparently long and freezing walk to the Marais. I'd just been working on the Hannah Arendt portion - not an in-depth Arendtian anything, but a discussion of the role of Arendt in the popular-loosely (or is it narrowly?) -defined understanding of nineteenth century French Jewish history. More or less, the notion that French Jews were self-hating assimilators. On my break from this, as I'm passing by all the soldes, who should I see in a shop window but... If they get Herzl shirts - not inconceivable given the neighborhood - my post-Petit-Bateau self-imposed t-shirt-buying hiatus will be broken.

2 comments:

JL Wall said...

Is that Heidegger in the window, too? It's like an incredibly dysfunctional version of the tale of Philemon and Baucis--except they live forever in a window-display rather than as trees.

And did you get close enough to see what Arendt is saying in the speech bubble on the shirt?

Sorry -- I'm just way too fascinated by this whole thing...

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

"Is that Heidegger in the window, too?"

I believe so.

"And did you get close enough to see what Arendt is saying in the speech bubble on the shirt?"

Looks like a little pink heart. Aw!