Reading & Composition

In this course, we will think about the relation between art and memory. By what means does art remember the past? How does it re-present past historical or personal events? How can a literary text allow for the resurfacing of the past, letting something that is absent speak to the present of the reader? What are the limits of art and language in this endeavor? Can literature remember a past that was never recorded and written? And how is art not only a site that allows us to turn back in time, but also forward, enabling us to rethink and re-vision our own present and future?

As many of the works we deal with interweave personal memory with historical trauma—from the Nazi genocide to colonialism, or the Vietnam War to the current refugee crisis—we will come to engage with the ethical, political, and aesthetic implications of remembering and forgetting. The various literary texts, films, photography, and philosophy that we will discuss open up lines of flight to different historical memories and their interrelation and encourage us to consider the intersectional nature of memory events.

Our readings and viewings are mainly taken from German-, French-, and Hebrew-language literature and art, but all of them ask us to draw connections to other historical, cultural, or linguistic contexts. Students will be required to bring in contributions of their own choice, reflecting their interests in any additional historical or contemporary contexts.

As this is an R1B class, writing is an essential component. In bi-weekly workshops, students will have the opportunity to work on idea development, argumentative skills, and revision in smaller formats, with the semester’s efforts culminating in a 10-page research paper and its subsequent revision. There are 2 long papers required for this class, as well as revisionary work on those papers. There will be many smaller, less-pressure writing assignments along the way, as well as a focus on individual attention to student’s writing in office hours.

Readings and viewings will include works by Paul Celan, Franz Kafka, Alain Resnais, Marguerite Duras, Patrick Modiano, Chris Marker, Dan Pagis, Walter Benjamin, Henri Bergson, Hannah Arendt, Susan Sontag.

A course reader will be made available for purchase at the beginning of the semester.