Monash University Handbook 2010 Undergraduate - Unit

Synopsis

Over the last one hundred years, Jewish writers throughout the world have composed a remarkable array of works that deal with the modern experience. Students will analyze an array of modern Jewish creative writing and consider the following questions: How did the writers understand modernism and their own identities as "modern" writers? How did they deal with issues of Jewishness and the intersection of the Jewish and the modern? What were the influences in their writings from European and American literature? How did they place their work in the larger framework of Jewish literature? What language did they choose to write in and what was the significance of that choice?

Objectives

On successfully completing this unit, students will:

1. be familiar with an array of modern Jewish writers;
2. have developed their tools of comparative analysis when researching authors who work in a broad range of languages;
3. have honed their evaluative tools when approaching writers composing at the same time but in different countries.

Assessment

Written work (3500 words): 60%
Class Presentation and Participation (500 words): 20%
Test (1 hour): 20%

Contact hours

One 2- hour seminar per week

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Comparative literature and cultural studies

Prerequisites

A first-year CLS, ENH, language or Jewish Studies sequence