German 325
Modern German Jewish Writers: Emancipation and Its Discontents
Full course for one semester. This course examines texts by modern
German Jewish writers and thinkers, with a special emphasis on the
period between 1900 and 1933. Often regarded as the culmination of
a century-long process of emancipation and acculturation, this
period is in fact marked by complex renegotiations of
German/Austrian Jewish identity. Themes include gender and
assimilation, exile and diaspora, racial antisemitism, Jewish
"self-hatred," representations of East European Jewry, and the
aestheticization and politicization of Jewish traditions. The
course concludes with a brief look at the post-Holocaust
reinterpretation of the "German-Jewish symbiosis." Readings from
Lessing, Heine, Schnitzler, Kafka, Lasker-Schüler, Roth, Celan,
Mendelssohn, Buber, Freud, Scholem, and Benjamin. Conducted in
English. Students may arrange with the instructor to take the class
for German credit. Conference. Cross-listed as Literature 329. Not
offered 2005-06.
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