ENG-3080 Literature of the Holocaust
This course will focus on the literary presentations of the Nazi Holocaust, the genocide of European Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and others. The literature and films studied will help to understand how genocide altered the historical and cultural landscape of the Western world and how these traumatic events challenged then and now the expressive capabilities of language and images. In this course, the student will analyze and write about texts drawn from a range of genres, including survivor memoirs, fictional narratives, poetry, drama, essays, and film. The approach to the texts will be interdisciplinary. Besides examining their literary and cinematic qualities, we will take into consideration the specific social, political, and philosophical contexts that shaped them. Finally, the course will examine the question of how the Holocaust might challenge our faith, rationality, and received ideas about the characters and virtues of Western culture.