Department of English

This course examines cinematic and literary portrayals of childhood. While Israeli works constitute more than half of the course's material, European film and fiction play comparative roles. Many of the works are placed, and therefore discussed, against a backdrop of national, collective, or historical conflicts. Nonetheless, private traumas (such as madness, abuse, or loss) or an adult’s longing for an idealized time are often the central foci of the stories. These personal issues and the nature of individual memory will be discussed from a psychological point of view. Additionally, the course analyzes how film, poetry and prose use their respective languages to reconstruct the image of childhood; it discusses the authors’ and directors’ struggle to penetrate the psyche of a child and to retrieve fragments of past events, both personal and historical.

There will be 5-6 film screenings. The content of this course changes from year to year, and therefore, students may take it for credit more than once.