Lecture on American Literature I:
Jewish-American Literature
This lecture course is designed to examine how Jewish-American writers, especially the second and third generations from immigrants about one-hundred years ago, more or less, have been depicting and expressing their experiences in the US as an ethnic minority. We will examine how Jewish writers have expressed, in various literary forms, identity struggles, efforts to assimilate, and problems of maintaining traditional beliefs and customs. Above all, we need to grapple with anti-Semitism as a central theme in interpreting Jewish-American lietrature.Readings will include works by Michael Gold, Henry Roth, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, I. B. Singer, Erica Jong, and Susan Sontag. Some pertinent films will be shown and discussed. Lectures will be in English and Japanese.
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