Comparative Literature 231 - AMERICAN JEWISH LITERATURE

Same as ENG 230 Explores the significant contribution of Jewish writers and critics to the development of American literature, broadly defined. Topics include narratives of immigration; the American dream and its alternatives; ethnic satire and humor; literary multilingualism; crises of the left involving Communism, Black-Jewish relations, and '60s radicalism; after-effects of the Holocaust; and the aesthetic engagement with folklore. Authors may include Yiddish and Hebrew modernist poets, Mary Antin, Henry Roth, I.B. Singer, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, E.L. Doctorow, Cynthia Ozick. We also consider how Canadian novelists (Mordecai Richler, Regine Robin) and Latin-American writers such as Moacyr Scliar, Isaac Goldemberg or Ilan Stavans provide transnational perspective. Must Jewish writing in the Americas remain on the margins, "too Jewish" for the mainstream yet "too white" to qualify as multicultural?