Abstract
This course will focus on ways contemporary (post-1950) autobiography in Israel and in France have been informed and influenced by family traditions and various other aspects of culture. At the center of our discussion, thus, will be the intriguing complex relationship between culture, gender and literary production. Questions regarding language, identity, gender, geography, borders, exile and migration, homeland and memory will figure prominently. Post-holocaust memory and its effect on family will be featured. Our discussions will be structured around close readings of texts, paying attention to formal issues and narrative strategies. We will watch two films.
The course will be writing intensive, practicing skills such as close literary analysis and persuasive argumentation.
Goals of my courses include increasing students’ ability to think critically and effectively, improve their ability to read with understanding and pleasure, construct and articulate compelling arguments of their own, write clearly and persuasively and introduce them to some works that expose the difficulty of narrating a life, especially one fractured by exile. An additional learning goal of my courses is to help develop an understanding of contemporary cultural diversity.