ENGL 280J

Jewish American Literature

Students will examine a rich tradition of Jewish American literature in the context of a complex American multicultural narrative. Topics include the immigrant experience, assimilation, alienation, responses to the Holocaust and other forms of anti-Semitism, the place of Israel in the Jewish American imagination, and a contemporary rediscovery or reconstruction of Jewishness and Judaism. Students will interrogate what constitutes Jewish American identity and defines its literature in a culture that is itself conflicted about its secular/religious ethos and the degree to which subjectivity is determined by "consent and/or descent.

Units: 3.0