Spring 2018  |  ENGL 3011 Section 001: Jewish American Literature: Toward a Poetics of Diasporic Identity (68263)

Instructor(s)
Class Component:
Lecture
Credits:
3 Credits
Grading Basis:
Student Option
Instructor Consent:
No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:
In Person Term Based
Class Attributes:
UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
Meets With:
JWST 3011 Section 001
Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
 
01/16/2018 - 05/04/2018
Tue, Thu 01:00PM - 02:15PM
UMTC, East Bank
Lind Hall 315
Enrollment Status:
Open (11 of 20 seats filled)
Course Catalog Description:
Why is it frequently asked whether Saul Bellow was really a Jewish writer, but it is impossible to read Philip Roth as anything other than that? How does Grace Paley's Jewishness come through even when she is writing about non-Jewish characters? We will address these issues and others by employing two terms that frame this course in Jewish American literature. "Poetics" refers to the structural and functional principles of literary works, and more broadly to the process by which meaning is made. Diaspora, used for millennia to describe the experience of the Jewish people after the expulsion from their Holy Land, has emerged as a term attached more generally to migrant and displaced peoples who maintain meaningful connections to their ancestral region and culture, while also creating meaningful identities in a new land. Metaphorically, the term implies a point of view that is displaced, meanings created by an outsider. In this course we will combine the critical paradigms associated with these terms to engage in a highly contextualized and historicized study of Jewish American literature from the 19th century to today. We will discover in these texts how inherited Jewish culture and literary imaginings, developed over centuries of diasporic interaction between Jewish communities and the outside world? get reexamined, questioned, rejected, reimagined, reintegrated, and transformed within the crucible of American experience. The meanings and literary modes that develop through the creative engagement of Jewish with American are fascinating in and of themselves in their specifically Jewish context, and even more so in their interrogation of core understandings of identity?and indeed of the boundaries of such a thing as a specifically Jewish context. The literature we read in this course and the discussions that ensue will therefore also provide a framework and method for engaging with the creative energies and cultural productivity of more recent diasporic communities
Class Notes:
http://classinfo.umn.edu/?parad004+ENGL3011+Spring2018
Class Description:
Why is it frequently asked whether Saul Bellow was "really" a Jewish writer, but it is impossible to read Philip Roth as anything other than that? How does Grace Paley's "Jewishness" come through even when she is writing about non-Jewish characters? We will address these issues and others by employing two terms that frame this course in Jewish American literature. "Poetics" refers to the structural and functional principles of literary works, and more broadly to the process by which meaning is made. "Diaspora," used for millennia to describe the experience of the Jewish people after the expulsion from their Holy Land, has emerged as a term attached more generally to migrant and displaced peoples who maintain meaningful connections to their ancestral region and culture, while also creating meaningful identities in a new land. Metaphorically, the term implies a point of view that is dis-placed, meanings created by an outsider. In this course we will combine the critical paradigms associated with these terms to engage in a highly contextualized and historicized study of Jewish American literature from the 19th century to today. We will discover in these texts how inherited Jewish culture and literary imaginings, developed over centuries of diasporic interaction between Jewish communities and the "outside world," get reexamined, questioned, rejected, reimagined, reintegrated, and transformed within the crucible of American experience.

The meanings and literary modes that develop through the creative engagement of "Jewish" with "American" are fascinating in and of themselves in their specifically Jewish context, and even more so in their interrogation of core understandings of identity - and indeed of the boundaries of such a thing as a "specifically Jewish context." The literature we read in this course and the discussions that ensue will therefore also provide a framework and method for engaging with the creative energies and cultural productivity of more recent diasporic communities in the United States and beyond. Immigration and the experience of immigrant communities continues to be at the forefront of American consciousness, as immigrants work to create new meanings and new narratives for their lives, and as those who immigrated before them provide contested meanings for the impact of immigration on their own narratives. This course, though grounded in Jewish narratives, will provide students with an expanded vocabulary and perspective for engaging in this central debate within the American experience.

Textbooks:
https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/68263/1183
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
1 September 2017

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