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Jewish American Literature

ENGL 261.401
also offered as: GRMN 263, COML 277, JWST 261
instructor(s):
TR 1:30-3:00 pm

What makes Jewish American literature Jewish?  What makes it American?  This course will address these questions about ethnic literature through fiction, poetry, drama, and other writings by Jews in America, from their arrival in 1654 to the present.  We will discuss how Jewish identity and ethnicity shape literature and will consider how form and language develop as Jewish writers "immigrate" from Yiddish, Hebrew, and other languages to American English.  Our readings, from Jewish American Literature:  A Norton Anthology, will include a variety of stellar authors, both famous and less-known, including Isaac Mayer Wise, Emma Lazarus, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Celia Dropkin, Abraham Cahan, Anzia Yezierska, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, and Allegra Goodman.  Students will come away from this course having explored the ways that Jewish culture intertwines with American culture in literature.

fulfills requirements
Elective Seminar of the Standard Major
Sector 2: Difference and Diaspora of the Standard Major
Sector 6: 20th Century Literature of the Standard Major