Studies in Symbolist and Modern Literatures

This course explores the writings of German-speaking/writing Jews from the emancipation of Jews from European ghettos in the 17th and 18th centuries to their expulsion or extermination during the period of National Socialism. The texts include a variety of perspectives (including social, political, and cultural) and genres (autobiography, memoir, poetry, fictional narratives, dramas, and a range of discursive writings). Although many of these writers are known for a broad spectrum of works, we will concentrate on those texts concerned with Jewish issues. Writers (may) include, among others, Glikl Hamel, Solomon Maimon, Moses Mendelssohn, Rachel Varnhagen, Karl Marx, Heinrich Heine, Franz Kafka, Else Lasker-Schüler, Arthur Schnitzler, Otto Weininger, Theodore Herzl, Sigmund Freud, Hannah Arendt, Peter Weiss, Paul Celan, Nelly Sachs.

Texts will be available in both German and English translation.