What makes Jewish American literature Jewish? What makes it American? This course will address these questions about ethnic literature through fiction, poetry, drama, and other writings by Jews in America, from their arrival in 1654 to the present. We will discuss how Jewish identity and ethnicity shape literature. We will consider how form and language develop as Jewish writers “immigrate” from Yiddish, Hebrew, and other languages to American English. Using the collection, Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology, we will read a variety of authors, including Isaac Mayer Wise, Emma Lazarus, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Celia Dropkin, Abraham Cahan, Anzia Yezierska, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, Allegra Goodman. Students who take this course will explore the ways that Jewish culture intertwines with American culture in literature.
Founded as a graduate program in 1904 and joining with the undergraduate Literature Concentration in 2007, Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature operates at the crossroads of multilingualism, literary study, and media history.
© 2023 President and Fellows of Harvard College
Sign up to receive news and information about upcoming events, exhibitions, and more
