Is America the Promised Land or a cultural waste land? In this
first-year seminar, we will explore how a series of Jewish
writers have grappled with this complicated question, from the
period of the great migration from Europe up to the present. The
writers we will study include Abraham Cahan, Mary Antin, Henry
Roth, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley,
Philip Roth, and Cynthia Ozick. Among the specific questions we
will address are the following: How does Jewish identity
transform in the New World? How do ideas from the religious
traditions of Judaism get translated into new forms? What kind
of stories do Jewish writers tell about the past and what sort
of future do they envision? We will also consider the Jewish
response to such phenomena as the backlash against immigrants in
the 1920s, the Holocaust, and the Cold War. Requirements include
short response papers and a term paper.