Topics in Lusophone Cultures (396-0-1)
Topic
Contemp Jewish Fiction of the Americas
Instructors
Jacob Wilkenfeld
Meeting Info
Parkes Hall 215: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
Describing his upbringing as a child of Eastern European immigrants, the Jewish Brazilian novelist Moacyr Scliar (1937-2011) once said, "At home, you speak Yiddish, eat gefilte fish and celebrate Shabbat. But in the streets, you have soccer, samba, and Portuguese. After a while you feel like a centaur." Scliar's fictional explorations of Jewish identity have led the literary scholar Nelson Vieira to observe that the Brazilian writer's stories "are reminiscent of work by Canadian-Jewish writer Mordecai Richler and the American novelist Philip Roth, both of whom struggle to capture the perplexing and exasperating paradoxes of people who live between two worlds." This course will take Vieira's remark as a critical point of departure to read contemporary Jewish literature of the Americas comparatively. Building on critical/theoretical readings, we will explore selected post-WWII novels and short stories published by Jewish writers across North and South America. While such fiction is often framed solely as part of a national tradition, we will look beyond national borders to understand some of the convergences and divergences of Jewish literary discourses which have emerged in different national contexts of the Western Hemisphere. Over the term, we will examine ways in which modern and contemporary Jewish fiction writers have approached themes of religion, culture, assimilation, diaspora, race, gender, sexuality, the legacy of the Holocaust, and other key concerns. Taught in English.
Class Materials (Required)
The House of Memory: Stories by Jewish Women Writers of Latin America (2nd edition), edited by Marjorie AgosÃn (ISBN: 9781910146736)
Oy, Caramba! An Anthology of Jewish Stories from Latin America, edited by Ilan Stavans (ISBN: 9780826354952)
The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector (ISBN: 9780811219495)
Class Notes
Literature Fine Arts Distro Area
Class Attributes
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area