COML 2580

Imagining the Holocaust

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2014-2015.

What is the role of the literary imagination in keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive for our culture? Within the historical context and raising ethical issues, we shall examine major and widely read Holocaust narratives that have shaped the way we understand and respond to the Holocaust. We shall begin with first-person reminiscences---Wiesel's Night, Levi's Survival at Auschwitz, and The Diary of Anne Frank---before turning to realistic fictions such as Kineally's Schindler's List (and Spielberg's film), Kertesz's Fateless, Kosinski's The Painted Bird, and Ozick's "The Shawl." We shall also read the mythopoeic vision of Schwarz-Bart's The Last of the Just, the illuminating distortions of Epstein's King of the Jews, the Kafkaesque parable of Appelfeld's Badenheim 1939, and the fantastic cartoons of Spiegelman's Maus books.

When Offered Spring.

Distribution Category (LA-AS)

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