In this class we explore the development of Jewish culture in America during the last half century. We will examine a range of cultural forms including literary works, essays, films, plays, stand-up comedy, and musical recordings. Specific themes to be discussed include the tensions between “high” and popular culture, the problem of responding to the Holocaust, American assimilation and its discontents, the meaning of Israel for American Jews, and the quest to reassert cultural traditions in modern and postmodern forms. The figures whose work we will consider include theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel; fiction writers Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley, Philip Roth; poets Allen Ginsberg and Adrienne Rich; and comics Lenny Bruce, Larry David, and Sarah Silverman.

Major Requirement: American Literature + Identity Difference