GERMAN 423 A: Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature and Culture:

We are Here. Contemporary German Jewish Voices in Literature and Across Media

We Are Here German 423 Updated-4.docx

This course looks at contemporary Jewish culture in Germany with a special focus on its representation in and negotiation through literary texts and different forms of media. Together we will discuss questions such as: How do young Jews in Germany see themselves? How do multiple belongings shape Jewish self-understanding today? What are approaches to the remembrance of the Holocaust and how can a German memory culture include both the Nazi genocide and German colonial violence? How do notions of Diaspora and different migrations since the 1990s, especially from Eastern Europe, shape German Jewishness? Engaging with fictional literature, poetry, film, music, performance art, podcasts, blogs and video clips (Yotube, Instagram, Tiktok), we consider the multiplicity of Jewish life in Germany today, from queer performance art and trans theater to recent fictional engagements with various generations of family histories.

Readings and discussions mostly in German