(Academic) 0.5 credits 11-12 grade Fall Semester
Not offered 2025-2026Core senior English course
Sometimes called “The People of the Book,” Jews-- and Jewish writers-- have a long tradition of asking questions, making meaning, and wrestling with what it means to be Jewish-- and human. The Jewish literary tradition is rich and multi-faceted, but some universal questions and tensions commonly arise: What does it mean to be Jewish? To wrestle with hyphenated identities? To create new homes in the diaspora? To be simultaneously insiders and outsiders? To wrestle with the history of anti-semitism? To be seen as both oppressor and oppressed? Thinking about questions of immigration, identity, gender, race, sexuality, trauma, and memory, the course will consider a range of identities and intersections of Jewish experience. In this course, we will explore these questions through works of Modern and contemporary Jewish American literature and film. Readings may include Angels in America, by Tony Kushner, “The Shawl” and other stories by Cynthia Ozcick, “The Family Markowitz,” by Allegra Goodman, Grace Paley, Bob Dylan, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Safron Foer, Art Spiegelman, Bernard Malamud, and poets including Ilya Kaminsky, Erica Meitner, Alicia Ostriker, Jill Bialosky, Gerald Stern, Adrienne Rich, and others.