Courses Offered in Department of English
British Romanticism and Judaism (Page)
This course will focus on five major categories: (1) historical and cultural contexts of Jews and Judaism in Britain from approximately 1770-1830; (2) the representation of Jews and Judaism in various texts and genres of the Romantic period in Britain; (3) the appropriation and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Romantic literature; (4) an introduction to selected Jewish writers of the period; and (5) the legacy of Romanticism on Judaism and on modern anti-Semitism.
Fiction of Philip Roth (Gordon)
We will consider Roth in a number of contexts: as Jewish-American author, as American author, as writer about male identity and sexuality, as realist, and as metafictionist. This course aims to improve your understanding of post-WWII American fiction, American masculinity, and Jewish-American culture through extensive reading and writing about the works of a single major author.
Jewish-American Fiction (Gordon)
This course traces the development of Jewish-American fiction within the context of twentieth-century American literature and deals with the role of ethnic literature within our polyethnic nation. We will study how Jewish-American writers absorbed and contributed to traditions of naturalism, realism, modernism, and postmodernism. Authors include Cahan, Yezierska, Henry Roth, Malamud, Bellow, Philip Roth, Ozick, Paley, Olsen, Broner, & I.B. Singer.
Jews and Cinema (Turim)
The focus of this course will be on different types of fictional films of Jewish peoples such as American Yiddish cinema prior to World War II, the social problem film combating prejudice, the Jewish comedy, the filmic exploration of the Holocaust, etc.
Representing Jews in Victorian Literature and Culture (Page)
The most famous Jew in Victorian England, Benjamin Disraeli, did not actually practice Judaism, since he was baptized at the age of twelve. And yet, Disraeli could not escape his Jewishness. Although Disraeli will not be the main focus of this course, ideas of Jewishness, representation, and British nationality will provide a common thread. We will read a variety of texts closely and carefully, attending to formal questions, modes of representation, and cultural significance.