Syllabus

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Weekly Schedule: Readings are to be completed on the day listed. The main posts are due by MIDNIGHT ON TUESDAY and the response posts are due Wednesday before class begins and you can write on any of the readings from that week.

Week 1:

I. Introductions to Jewish American Fiction

M 8/27: Review Syllabus

W 8/29: Hannah Wirth-Nesher “Defining the Indefinable: What is Jewish Literature” [read to bottom of page 3]

Week 2:

M 9/3: No Class-Labor Day

W 9/5: Background Material on Blackboard: “Introduction” and “Chapter 2” to Cambridge Companion to Jewish American Literature

Week 3:

M 9/10: Background Material on Blackboard: Alan L. Berger’s “American Jewish Fiction”

II. Between the Wars

W 9/12: Anzia Yezierska “How I Found America” (1920)

Week 4:

M 9/17: Delmore Schwartz “In Dreams Begin Responsibility” (1937); Henry Roth Call it Sleep “The Cellar” [1-12](1934)

III. The Holocaust

W 9/19: Cynthia Ozick The Shawl (1981)

Week 5:

IV. The Immediate Post-WWII Generation

M 9/24: Paper 1 Due; Bernard Malamud “The Magic Barrel” (1954)

W 9/26: I.B. Singer “Gimpel the Fool” (1953)

Week 6:

V. Coming of Age of Jewish American Literature (1960-1980)

M 10/1 Tillie Olsen “I Stand Here Ironing” (1962)

W 10/3 Grace Paley “Zagrowsky Tells” (1974)

Week 7:

M 10/8: Saul Bellow “The Silver Dish (1978)

W 10/10: Leonard Michaels “Murderers” (1975); “Cityboy” (1969)

Week 8:

M 10/15: MIDTERM REVIEW

W 10/17: MIDTERM

Week 9:

VI: The Philip Roth Phenomenon

M 10/22: Philip Roth Portnoy’s Complaint [chapters TBA] (1969)

W 10/24: Philip Roth Portnoy’s Complaint [chapters TBA] (1969)

Week 10:

M 10/29: Philip Roth Portnoy’s Complaint [chapter TBA] (1969)

W 10/31: Philip Roth Portnoy’s Complaint [chapters TBA] (1969)

Week 11

VII: Writing on the Holocaust

M 11/5: Art Speigelman Maus Book 1 [first half](1991)

W 11/7: Art Spiegelman Maus Book 1 [second half] (1991)

Week 12:

M 11/12: No Class- Veteran’s Day

W 11/14: Paper 2 Due Art Spiegelman Maus Book 2 [first half] (1991)

Week 13:

M  11/19: Art Spiegelman Maus Book 2 [second half](1991)

W 11/21 No Class—Thanksgiving

Week 14:

VIII: The Fourth Generation Jewish American Writer

M 11/26: Jonathan Safran Foer Everything is Illuminated [Chapters 1-10] (2002)

W 11/28: Jonathan Safran Foer Everything is Illuminated [Chapters 11-20] (2002)

Week 15:

M 12/3: Jonathan Safran Foer Everything is Illuminated [Chapters 21-30] (2002)

W 12/5: Jonathan Safran Foer Everything is Illuminated [Chapters 31-end] (2002), Final Exam Review

Final Exam: TBA