L375 23346 STUDIES IN JEWISH LITERATURE
Susan Gubar

11:15a-12:30p TR (23 students) 3 cr. A&H.

TOPIC: “The Holocaust”

This class will begin with touchstone texts (in translation) about the Holocaust. After viewing Alain Renais' film Night and Fog, we will read excerpts from two diaries, by Anne Frank and Charlotte Salomon (if I can figure out a way to make this last text available), and two memoirs, by Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi. Poetry— especially by Paul Celan and Dan Pagis—will turn us toward survivors who composed short stories: Tadeusz Borowski and Ida Fink. Taken together, all of this work will engage us in comprehending the role of art in the face of disaster. To think about this issue with some sophistication, we will draw on philosophical approaches to it by thinkers like Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Maurice Blanchot (which will be available on electronic reserve).

With this grounding in primary documents, we will spend the rest of the semester studying the trans-national impact of the Shoah on contemporary writers who did not personally undergo the catastrophe. Fictional treatments will probably include Martin Sherman's Bent, Art Spiegelman's Maus, Cynthia Ozick's The Shawl, Philip Roth, The Ghost Writer, and Bernard Schlink’s The Reader. We will also see excerpts from a number of films and look at the role photography has played in memorializing the catastrophe.

Most class sessions will include some lecturing, some class discussion. Besides the midterm and final exams, two papers are required. In the first, of approximately 5-6 pages, students will be asked to deal with one aspect (thematic or formal) of first- generation literature by victims or survivors. In the second, of approximately 8-10 pages, students will be able to chose a subject (related to our readings) that will enable them to undertake further independent thinking.