Jewish Voices in American Literature: From the 1880s to the Present

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” writes Emma Lazarus in her famous 1883 poem “The New Colossus.” Defending the rights of persecuted immigrants from Eastern Europe and Russia, Lazarus is a particularly well-known representative of Jewish-American writing in the 1880s, followed by a long list of Jewish authors that have unquestionably shaped the American literary canon. Engaging with issues of immigration and assimilation, religion and secularization, anti-Semitism and the memory of the Holocaust, Jewish-American writers have played a central role in addressing questions of identity formation in American literature. Among other things, their rich engagement with individual and group identity raises the complex question of what, specifically, makes Jewish-American literature Jewish. Or, asked differently, what makes it American?

Contemplating these intricate questions, we will focus our attention on a few theoretical texts and a versatile collection of primary texts, including poems, short stories, memoirs, novels, and graphic narratives. In doing so, the course will acquaint students with some of the main traditions of Jewish-American literature. Divided into two sections, we will trace the history of Jewish-American writing from the period of mass immigration in the 19th century to more pronounced assimilation efforts and a movement away from the cities to the suburbs in the 20th century. In a second section, we will analyze different literary negotiations of the Holocaust, talk about its impact on Jewish-American writing throughout the second half of the 20th century, and discuss its continuing role as a literary stimulus in the 21st century.