Department of English

This course introduces novels, short fiction, and poetry written in America by Jews of eastern European origins. Issues of Jewish identity and ethnicity in an American context inform our discussions. We will consider how literary form and language develope as Jewish writers immigrated from Yiddish to American English. We will read authors who wrote between 1870 - 1990, and who lived in Poland, Russia, New York, Montreal, and California. These writers include: Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Celia Dropkin, Abraham Cahan, Anzia Yezierska, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick. Course requirements: 25 pages of writing (probably 2 short papers and a take-home final).