LIT 190YTopics in Jewish Literature and Culture

Study of selected authors or issues related to modern Jewish literature and culture. Topic changes; please see the Class Search for current topic. Distribution requirement: Senior Seminar. Jewish Studies majors may use this course to satisfy the Jewish Studies senior exit requirement.

• TOPICS IN JEWISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE: JEWISH COMEDY How can we account for the extraordinary preponderance of Jews among the principal makers of modern comedy? Is there a single shared Jewish comic sensibility, or have there been several? Which aspects of Jewish culture and experience have Jewish writers and artists drawn upon in creating their distinctive brands of comedy? Beginning with these general questions, this course surveys the work of some of the outstanding classic and contemporary Jewish comic writers: from the Yiddish comic tradition pioneered by Sholem Aleichem more than a century ago through successive generations of Jewish writers, satirists and artists, working in multiple genres (fiction, plays, memoirs, films, sketch comedies, romantic comedies, situation comedies, graphic novels, and cartoons) during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. And the course will conclude with a celebration of the 100th birthday of the great writer-director Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, The Producers)!

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