FMST 330B - The Holocaust in Representation: Trauma in History, Literature, and Film

Fall or Spring (3) (College 200, ALV)

In this seminar we will be reading a wide range of texts depicting both the destruction of European Jewry during the Holocaust as well as postwar identity crises faced by Jewish German survivors after the war. A number of critical questions will inform our reading of historical, literary and cinematic texts such as Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl, Jurek Becker’s Jacob the Liar, Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Steve Spielberg’s Schindler’s List and Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful. For instance, is one obligated to depict the Holocaust ‘realistically’ or only in historical texts? Can one avoid turning this event into a ‘story’? What role does ‘unrealistic’ depiction play? Among the people touched by the events of the Holocaust, whose stories seem more ‘authentic,’ whose more ‘dramatic,’ whose more suited to a Hollywood movie than others and why? Furthermore, what is a ‘true’ portrait of the dilemmas facing German Jews after 1945? What does it mean to live in Germany and write in German as a Holocaust survivor? And finally (in this course), we will ask how some American Jews define themselves in relation to the Shoah; what do Spiegelman’s Maus and Roth’s the Counterlife tell us about the identity crisis faced by American Jews? (This course is anchored in the ALV domain, and also considers aspects of the CSI domain.)