After the Pesah holiday the Nahum Goldmann
Alumni Online Magazine will open its first
online course in cooperation with the Jewish Heritage Online Magazine.
The course, led by Prof. Ruth Wisse and entitled The
Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Language and
Literature is free, and will be conducted via email
listserve. It consists of five lessons, each of which
is live for interactive discussion for approximately two
weeks.
Lesson 1: Sholem Aleichem: Tevye the Dairyman
Lesson 2: Franz Kafka: The Trial
Lesson 3: Isaac Babel, Red Cavalry
Lesson 4: Saul Bellow, Mr. Sammler's Planet
Lesson 5: Haim Sabato, Adjusting Sights
READING REQUIREMENTS
To participate in this course you will need to purchase the required
books from which Prof. Wisse has taken selections. Follow the
lefthand sidebar link or the button to the right for more information.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course presents five books that tell different
parts of the modern Jewish story. The books do not
pretend to be "representative" of the literature as a
whole, but they do cover a lot of territory and
varieties of Jewish experience.
Enjoyable as it is to read a good book, it can be even
more enjoyable when we have a context for critical
reflection and discussion. With that in mind, the
course will build an appreciation of the features of
each work by showing what makes it distinctive and
persuasive. You will understand how it interprets life
and the world, how it tells a Jewish story, and how
the language of composition affects the way the story
is told.
Each lesson will briefly introduce author and book.
The main focus is on the work itself. The recommended
passages from The Modern Jewish Canon are intended as
supplementary background and basis for discussion.
These books are very different from one another in
their approach to fiction and to the human condition.
They try to make sense of their situation, and we will
try to make sense of them.
A footnote: Until 1939, Yiddish was the spoken language of the
majority of the world's Jews, while Hebrew was being reclaimed as
the spoken language of the Jews in Eretz Israel. Thus, if we want
to read the best of modern Jewish literature, we are obliged to
read at least some of it in translation (although learning Hebrew
is a good idea, since more and more of Jewish literature is being
written in Israel). The modern Jewish experience is thereby registered in
Jewish and non-Jewish languages alike.
We invite you to participate!
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