HIST-LIT 90HL: Contemporary German-Jewish Art & Literature

Instructor: Simone Stirner
Meeting time: Monday, 3:00-5:00 pm

This course introduces students to the plurality of contemporary German-Jewish culture in historical perspective. How do contemporary writers and artists negotiate the long legacy of the Second World War and the Holocaust? How has the fall of the Iron Curtain and the migration of Jews from the former Soviet Union after 1990 reshaped German-Jewish art and literature? Which intersections exist between contemporary German-Jewish writing and other minority discourses in Germany, including Muslim, queer, and migrant discourses? In dialogue with thinkers such as Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno, whose work on exile, memory, and political agency continues to influence postwar writing, we investigate questions of cultural memory, migration, and evolving forms of belonging in contemporary Germany through a variety of media, including memorials and architecture, novels and murals, video and installation art. Moving between literary and artistic case studies and historical and theoretical writings, the course situates contemporary German‑Jewish art and literature within broader questions of cultural identity and historical memory and opens comparative perspectives to other cultural and linguistic contexts.

Taught in English. Knowledge of German is not required, but students with a background in German will be able to work with source texts. Readings also offer the opportunity to work with Yiddish, Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Russian and other languages to fulfill History & Literature’s language requirement.

This course is offered as HIST-LIT 90HL and GERMAN 167. Credit may be earned for either GERMAN 167 or HIST-LIT 90HL, but not both.