Jewish American Literature and Culture
Prof. Sasha Senderovich * senderov@uw.edu // www.sashasenderovich.com
*** ENGL 357 is the same as JEW ST 357: if ENGL 357 is full, register for JEW ST 357 (and vice versa). It's simply two different numbers for the same exact course ***
Feel free to email the professor with any questions.
MW 9:30--11:20, Winter 2021
This course examines literary and cultural production about the Jewish experience in America. Considers ways in which American Jews assimilate and resist assimilation while Jewish writers, filmmakers, comedians, and graphic novelists imitate and transform American life and literature—with particular emphasis on questions of immigration, identity, gender, sexuality, race, inter-generational trauma, and cultural memory.
The updated course syllabus can be found here: ENGL-JEW ST 357 - Jewish American Lit & Culture - Winter 2022 -- full syllabus -- revised.pdf
Course materials:
Books (please acquire actual paper books—not Kindle books or books in other electronic formats—at the University Bookstore, or online; used copies are fine; have the texts with you for ready reference on days we discuss them):
- Liana Finck, A Bintel Brief: Love and Longing in Old New York
- Art Spiegelman, The Complete Maus (or you can get both Maus I and Maus II separately)
- Lee Conell, The Party Upstairs
Music (please purchase the following album, on iTunes, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, etc. or another platform):
- Anthony Russell, Convergence https://www.anthonyrussellbass.com/convergence
Additional selected readings (several short stories and some poems) will be available as PDFs in Canvas.
Films: several films assigned for class are available to stream (free of charge) through Canvas.
One TV show: The Plot Against America (2020) is available on HBO Max. Those of you who already have a subscription can find the show there; those who do not have a subscription will be able to sign up for a 14-day free trial and cancel it before you need to pay.