Comparative Literature 277 - MODERN JEWISH FICTION

What is the relationship between the homeless imagination and imagined homecomings, political upheaval and artistic revolution, the particularity of national experience and the universality of the Jew? Focuses on four masters of the 20th century short story and novel: Franz Kafka’s enigmatic narratives of modern alienation; Isaac Babel’s bloody tales of Revolution; Isaac Bashevis Singer's Yiddish demons and Nobel prize laureate S. Y. Agnon's neo-religious parables of loss and redemption. All readings in translation; open to any student with a love of great literature.