JUS 376 - German-Jewish Writers
FALL 2005Course description:
The course will focus on the contributions of Jewish writers to German
literature and culture. In each case, a reading of the writer’s works
will include an examination of that writer’s dual identity as Jew and as
German, and a questioning of how this duality is reflected in the
writer’s texts. Issues of assimilation/acculturation, Jewish
identification, and Jewish self-hatred will all be discussed.
This course is a Humanities Tier Two course in the University-wide
General Education Curriculum; it also fulfills the “Gender, Race, Class,
and Ethnicity” requirement. Like other Tier Two courses, this class will
seek to help you develop your critical thinking, writing, and
interpretive skills. We will examine a wide variety of texts, ranging
from purely literary texts — poetry, prose, and drama — to works of
philosophy and political science. The course is interdisciplinary in
this sense, and also in the sense that you will be asked to consider how
the work of these writers is shaped by the struggle for equal rights as
Jews in the German-speaking world, and the equally difficult struggle to
come to terms within themselves with their conflicted identities.
No knowledge of German is required, and all readings, lectures, and
discussions will be in English. Students are invited to meet with the
instructor regularly to monitor their progress.
Evaluation:
The course grade will be based on the following formula:
Attendance, completion of readings, and participation in class
discussions — 30%
Two 5-page papers (on topics to be approved by the instructor) — 30%.
These are not intended to be research papers; rather, they should
contain your own reflections on works studied and issues raised in
class. The first of these will involve handing in a rough draft, due on
September 23, which will then be handed back by the instructor with
feedback. Your final draft, due on September 30, should incorporate this
feedback.
Midterm and Final exams — 20% each. These exams will consist of some
identifications of quotes and terms, along with two essay questions.
Students in the Honors sections (GER 376-01 and JUS 376 01) will be
required to write a 10-page paper for their second paper assignment,
which should involve some research beyond the assigned class readings. A
rough draft should be handed in by Nov. 14, with the final draft due
Nov. 28. This paper will count for 20% of the grade, and for Honors
students the midterm will count for only 15%.
Required texts (available at ASUA Bookstore)
Howard M. Sachar, The Course of Modern Jewish History (Vintage)
Mendelssohn, Jerusalem (University Press of New England)
Schnitzler, Road into the Open (University of California Press)
Kafka, The Basic Kafka (Pocket Books)
Other texts on Electronic Reserves (ERes) — see below.
Optional text
Ruth Gay, The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait (Yale University
Press)
Course outline
Week 1 (Aug. 22 & 24): Jewish settlement in the German-speaking world.
Sachar, Chapters 1 & 2.
Excerpt from Glückel of Hameln (ERes).
Optional: Gay, Chapters 1, 2, 3
Week 2 (Aug. 29 & 31): The Enlightenment and the beginnings of
emancipation.
Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, or, On religious power and Judaism
Optional: Gay, Chapter 4
Week 3 (Sept. 5 & 7): Assimilation and identity crisis.
Sachar, Chapters 3 & 7
The Salons: Memoirs of Henriette Herz, Letters of Dorothea Schlegel and
Rahel Varnhagen (ERes)
Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s letter to his son Felix (ERes)
Optional: Gay, Chapter 5
Week 4 (September 12 & 14): Heinrich Heine
Sachar, Chapters 5 & 6
Heine, Harz Journey (ERes)
Heine Poems (ERes): “The Grenadiers,” “I don’t know the reason,” “The
night is calm,” “You’re lovely as a flower,” “The young miss stood by
the ocean”
Heine, Germany, A Winter’s Tale (ERes)
Week 5 (September 19 & 21): Heine and Marx on Jewish themes
Heine: The Rabbi of Bacherach (ERes)
Heine: Writings on Jewish themes — Read chronologically!! (ERes)
Heine: “Hebrew Melodies” (ERes)
Marx, “On the Jewish Question” (ERes)
Rough draft of first paper due on September 21.
Week 6 (September 26 & 28): Questioning assimilation.
Hirsch, “Emancipation” (ERes)
Sachar, Chapters 11 & 13.
Herzl, excerpts from The Jewish State (ERes).
Optional: Gay, Chapter 6
Final draft of first paper due on September 28.
Week 7 (October 3 & 5): Schnitzler’s response to the rise of
antisemitism
Midterm exam on October 3
Arthur Schnitzler, The Road into the Open (start).
Week 8 (October 10 & 12): Schnitzler continued
Sachar Chapter 19.
Finish The Road into the Open.
Week 9 (October 17 & 19): Freud
Freud, excerpts from The Interpretation of Dreams (ERes),.
Freud: Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (ERes), Moses and
Monotheism (ERes)
Week 10 (October 24 & 26): Kafka
Franz Kafka, “Before the Law,” “The Judgment,” and “Letter to his
Father”
Kafka, “A Report to an Academy, ” “The Animal in the Synagogue” (ERes),
“Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk”
Week 11 (October 31& November 2): Lasker-Schüler and Canetti
Sachar, Chapter 20
Else Lasker-Schüler, “Land of the Hebrews” and Poems (ERes);
Elias Canetti, “The Challenge” and “Backenroth” (ERes)
Week 12 (November 7 & 9): The Shoah
Sachar, Chapter 21.
Celan, “Fugue of Death” (ERes)
Sachs, Poems (ERes)
Optional: Gay, Chapter 7
Remaining weeks (November 14, 16, 21, 28, & 30; December 5): The
Aftermath — Jewish writers in German today
Second paper due on November 28.
The following readings will be availabld on ERes:
Katja Behrens, “Perfectly Normal”
Chaim Noll, “A Country, A Child, But Not the Country’s Child”
Barbara Honigmann, from A Love Out of Nothing
Henryk M. Broder, “Heimat? No, Thanks!”
Esther Dischereit, from Joemi’s Table: A Jewish Story
Robert Menasse, from Happy Times, Brittle World
Thomas Feibel, “Gefilte Fish and Pepsi: A Childhood in Enemy Territory”
Maxim Biller, “Finkelstein’s Fingers”
Rafael Seligmann, from Rubinstein’s Auction
Maxim Biller, “See Auschwitz and Die”
Matthias Hermann, “Six Poems”
Peter Stephan Jungk, from Shabbat: A Rite of Passage in Jerusalem
Leo Sucharewicz, “The Girl and the Children”
Henryk M. Broder, “Our Kampf”
Benjamin Korn, “Witching Hour: Images of Germany—Sixty Years Later”
Rafael Seligmann, “Instead of an Afterword”
Maxim Biller, “Reunification I”
Final examination
Tuesday, December 12 2:00-4:00 PM ILC 119
* * *
Electronic Reserves (ERes)
The readings marked “ERes” are available online through the UA Library’s
Electronic Reserves system. To access them, go to http://eres.library.arizona.edu/eres/courseindex.aspx?page=search,
and then you can search either by instructor (Kovach) or by course (GER
or JUS 376). You’ll be asked for the course password, which is gjwrite.
Then you can click on the text you want to access. Please print out all
readings so that you can have a copy to underline, make notes, bring to
class for discussions, etc.
D2L
I’ll be using the D2L website to make announcements outside class, and
you can use it also to check on readings, class schedules, etc., and to
chat among yourselves. The login website is http://d2l.arizona.edu/index.asp.
Policies
• Plagiarism. In any written work handed in for class (both papers and
exams), it is expected that all wording and ideas be your own, unless
you have explicitly credited your source. Unless you have made special
arrangements, it is assumed that any work turned in for this class was
composed exclusively for this class, and not recycled from an earlier
assignment in another class. For more information, please consult
http://w3.arizona.edu/~studpubs/policies/cacaint.htm#ProhibitedConduct
and http://www.u.arizona.edu/~debraw/300_presession/plagiarism.htm.
• Special Needs. Students with disabilities who require reasonable
accommodations to participate fully in course activities or meet course
requirements must register with the Disability Resource Center (http://drc.arizona.edu/)
and provide the instructor with appropriate documentation in advance of
exam or any other required course activity for which accommodations are
being requested.
• Cell phones and pagers, classroom behavior. If you bring these to
class, it is your responsibility to see to it that the ringer is turned
off prior to class. Failure to do this may result in loss of attendance
credit; if this happens more than once, you will be asked to leave
class. Students engaging in private conversations while class is in
session, or engaging in other disruptive behavior, may be asked to leave
class; if this occurs, the class will be recorded as an unexcused
absence for that student.
• Absences. Absences due to holidays or special events observed by
organized religions will be excused for students who show affiliation
with that particular religion, provided advance notice is given to the
instructor. Absences due to illness will be excused provided
documentation is presented to the instructor; if notice is given to the
instructor by e-mail or phone prior to class, this requirement may be
waived at the instructor’s discretion.
• Under exceptional circumstances, I may allow you to submit written
assignments via e-mail, provided the following conditions are met:
1. You must obtain permission in advance.
2. It is your responsibility to make sure that I received the assignment
in a form that I am able to download and print.
• Threatening behavior by students. You should familiarize yourselves
with the policies stated on the following website: http://policy.web.arizona.edu/~policy/threaten.shtml
|
