Nancy Ruttenburg
Department of English
English 145D: Jewish-American Literature
cross-listed with Russian, East European,
and Eurasian Studies,
and Jewish Studies
“I had a Jewish life to lead in the American language, and that’s not a language that’s
helpful with dark thoughts.”
Saul Bellow, Ravelstein
“My brother, my sister, and I are often annoyed by our failure to have extracted much
information from our parents and grandmother. Of course they may not have known
much—but there is a world where some people publicly trace their past to medieval
baronies and others, plain Jews like us, believe they are descended, through centuries of
wandering, settlement, pogroms, immigration, from famous rabbis, princes of great cities
full of Polish and Lithuanian Jews, not to mention the Spanish communities of the
Marranos—well, my sister and brother and I, we feel kind of left out. Actually, I don’t
think any one of us wants to go that far back, but we did want to know why those old
cities, Bachmut, Baku, and Mariupol, were mentioned from time to time in discontinued
conversations or printed on the backs of old Russian photographs, some taken in the
family photography establishment, Gutzeit.”
Grace Paley, Just As I Thought
Course Description
From its inception, Jewish-American literature has taken as its subject as well as its
context the idea of “Jewishness” itself. Jewish culture is a diasporic one, and for this
reason the concept of “Jewishness” differs from country to country and across time.
What stays remarkably similar, though, is Jewish self-perception and relatedly Jewish
literary style. This is as true for the first-generation immigrant writers like Isaac
Bashevis Singer and Anzia Yezierska who came to the United States from abroad as it is
for their second-generation children born in the United States, and the children of those
children. In this course, we will consider the difficulties of displacement for the emigrant
generation and their efforts to sustain their cultural integrity in the multicultural
American environment. We’ll also examine the often comic revolt of their Americanborn children and grandchildren against their (grand-)parents’ nostalgia and failure to
assimilate. Only by considering these transnational roots can one understand the
particularity of the Jewish-American novel in relation to mainstream and minority
American literatures. In investigating the link between American Jewish writers and
their literary progenitors, we will draw largely but not exclusively from Russia and the
countries of Eastern Europe.
Week 1: Identity Crisis
Mar 31:
Simon Rich, “Sell Out: Parts 1-4 (The New Yorker, 29 Jan 2013) Coursework
Apr 2:
Amos Oz, Fania Oz-Salzberger, “Each Person Has a Name; or, Do Jews Need
Judaism?” in Jews and Words (2012) Coursework
Isaac Deutscher, “Message of the Non-Jewish Jew” Coursework
Iuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century, excerpts Coursework
Grace Paley, excerpt from “Like All the Other Nations” (1975) in Just As I
Thought Coursework
Week 2: Russian Literary Progenitors: Legacy of Style and Character in Fiction
Apr 7:
Nikolai Gogol, “The Overcoat,” “The Nose,” Coursework
Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Notes from the Underground,” Pt II, chap 1. and Notes from
the House of the Dead, excerpt Coursework
Babel, “The Awakening” and “In the Basement” Coursework
Apr 9:
Grace Paley, “Goodbye and Good Luck” Coursework
Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint (Vintage)
Recommended:
Bernard Avishai, Promiscuous: ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’ and Our
Doomed Pursuit of Happiness
Week 3: Fictional Legacy of Atrocity
Apr 14:
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Shadows on the Hudson
Apr 16:
Shadows on the Hudson, cont.
Week 4: Fictional Legacy of Atrocity. The Immigrant Generation
Apr 21:
Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl
Bernard Malamud, The Fixer
Apr 23:
The Fixer, cont. Malamud, selected short stories Coursework
Week 4: Generational strife. The Old Jew, the New Jew, the Newer Old Jew
Apr 28:
Tillie Olsen, “Tell me a Riddle” in Tell Me a Riddle (1961) Coursework
Anzia Yezierska, Bread Givers
Apr 30:
Art Spiegelman, Maus 1 (and 2 if possible)
Week 5: The Anxiety of Jewish (Literary) Influence
May 5:
Roth, The Ghost Writer
May 7:
The Ghost Writer, cont.
Week 6: Blacks and Jews
May 12:
Baldwin, “Negroes are Anti-Semitic Because they’re Anti-White”Coursework
Bellow, Mr. Sammler’s Planet
Paley, “The Long Distance Runner” and “Zagrowsky Tells” in Collected Stories;
“Traveling” in Just What I Thought Coursework
May 14:
Mr. Sammler’s Planet, cont.
Recommended
Roth, The Human Stain
Rebecca Walker, Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a
Shifting Self
Eric Sundquist, Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, Post
-Holocaust
America, excerpts
Week 7: Blacks and Jews
May 19:
Lori Segal, Her First American
May 21:
Anna Deavere Smith, Fires in the Mirror or show DVD
Week 8: Jewish Climbers, Gangsters, Hustlers, Machers
May 26: MEMORIAL DAY, NO CLASSES
May 28:
Dostoevsky, “Something About Lying,” Diary of a Writer, 1873, #15 Coursework
Babel, The Odessa Stories, excerpts Coursework
Budd Schulberg, What Makes Sammy Run?
Week 9: Wrap-up
Jun 2:
What Makes Sammy Run, concluded
End of Quarter Wrap-up