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FALL 2005
GRMN 401-401 Beginning
Yiddish I
TR 12-1:30 pm
K. Hellerstein
The goal of this course is
to help beginning students develop skills in Yiddish conversation, reading
and writing. Yiddish is the medium of a millennium of Jewish life. We
will frequently have reason to refer to the history and culture of Ashkenazie
Jewry in studying the language.
GRMN 263-401 (ENGL 079/JWST 261) Jewish American Literature
Distribution III: Arts & Letters
TR 10:30 am - 12 pm
K. Hellerstein
What makes Jewish American literature Jewish? What makes it American? This course will address these questions about ethnic literature through fiction, poetry, drama, and other writings by Jews in America , from their arrival in 1654 to the present. We will discuss how Jewish identity and ethnicity shape literature and will consider how form and language develop as Jewish writers "immigrate" from Yiddish, Hebrew, and other languages to American English. Our readings, from Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology, will include a variety of stellar authors, both famous and less-known, including Isaac Mayer Wise, Emma Lazarus, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Celia Dropkin, Abraham Cahan, Anzia Yezierska, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, and Allegra Goodman. Students will come away from this course having explored the ways that Jewish culture intertwines with American culture in literature.
Jewish Films and Literature
GRMN 261 / ENGL 287 / FILM 251 / JWST 261
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts &
Letters.
From the 1922 silent film "Hungry Hearts" through the first "talkie," "The Jazz Singer," produced in 1927, and beyond "Schindler's List," Jewish characters have confronted the problems of their Jewishness on the silver screen for a general American audience. Alongside this Hollywood tradition of Jewish film, Yiddish film blossomed from independent producers between 1911 and 1939, and interpreted literary masterpieces, from Shakespeare's "King Lear" to Sholom Aleichem's "Teyve the Dairyman," primarily for an immigrant, urban Jewish audience. In this course, we will study a number of films and their literary sources (in fiction and drama), focusing on English language and Yiddish films within the framework of three dilemmas of interpretation: a) the different ways we "read" literature and film, b) the various ways that the media of fiction, drama, and film "translate" Jewish culture, and c) how these translations of Jewish culture affect and are affected by their implied audience.
Instructor: Kathryn Hellerstein
Women in Jewish Literature
GRMN 262 / JWST 162 / WSTD 433
This course will introduce Penn students of literature, women's studies, and Jewish studies -- both undergraduates and graduates -- to the long tradition of women as readers, writers, and subjects in Jewish literature (in translation from Yiddish, Hebrew, and in English). By examining the interaction of culture, gender, and religion in a variety of literary works by Jewish authors, from the seventeenth century to the present, the course will argue for the importance of Jewish women's writing. Authors include Glikl of Hameln, Cynthia Ozick, Anzia Yezierska, Kadya Molodowsky, Esther Raab, Anne Frank, and others. "Jewish woman, who knows your life? In darkness you have come, in darkness do you go." J. L. Gordon (1890)
Instructor: Kathryn Hellerstein
Jewish American Literature
GRMN 263 / ENGL 079 / JWST 261
Distribution III: May be counted as a Distributional course in Arts &
Letters.
This course introduces novels, short fiction and poetry written in America by Jews. Issues of Jewish identity and ethnicity in an American context inform our discussions. We will consider how literary form and language develop as Jewish writers "immigrated" from Yiddish, Hebrew, and other languages to American English. Using the new Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology and other texts, we will read authors who wrote between 1800 and 2000. These writers include: Isaac Mayer Wise, Emma Lazarus, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Celia Dropkin, Abraham Cahan, Anzia Yezierska, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, Allegra Goodman.
Instructor: Kathryn Hellerstein
Yiddish Literature and Culture in Eastern Europe
GRMN 265 401 / GRMN 565 401 / JWST 265 401
This course presents the major trends in Yiddish literature and culture in Eastern Europe from the mid-19th century through World War II. Divided into four sections-"The Shtetl," "Religious vs. Secular Jews," "Language and Culture," and "Confronting Destruction"-this course will examine how Jews expressed the central aspects of their experience in Eastern Europe through history, literature (fiction, poetry, drama, memoir), film, and song. All readings and lectures in English.
Instructor: Kathryn Hellerstein
Translating Cultures: Literature on and in Translation
GRMN 010-301 / COML430 / JWST 409
"Languages are not strangers to one another," writes the great critic and translator Walter Benjamin. Yet two people who speak different languages have a difficult time talking to one another, unless they both know a third, common language or can find someone who knows both their languages to translate what they want to say. Without translation, most of us would not be able to read the Bible or Homer, the foundations of Western culture. Americans wouldn't know much about the cultures of Europe, China, Africa, South America, and the Middle East. And people who live in or come from these places would not know much about American culture. Without translation, Americans would not know much about the diversity of cultures within America. The very fabric of our world
depends upon translation between people, between cultures, between texts.
With a diverse group of readings—autobiography, fiction, poetry, anthropology, and literary theory—this course will address some fundamental questions about translating language and culture. What does it mean to translate? How do we read a text in translation? What does it mean to live between two languages? Who is a translator? What are different kinds of literary and cultural translation? What are their principles and theories? Their assumptions and practices? Their
effects on and implications for the individual and the society?
Beginning Yiddish I
YDSH 101 / JWST031
Yiddish is a 1000-year-old language with a rich heritage. This course introduces the skills of reading, writing, and speaking Yiddish through the study of grammar, enriched by cultural materials such as song, literature, folklore, and film. This course assumes no previous knowledge of Yiddish.
Instructor: Staff
Beginning Yiddish II
YDSH 102 / JWST032
Prerequisite(s): YDSH 101 or permission of the instructor.
In this course, you can continue to develop basic reading, writing and speaking skills. Discover treasures of Yiddish culture: songs, literature, folklore, and films.
Instructor: Staff
Intermediate Yiddish I
YDSH 1 03 / JWST 033
Prerequisite(s): YDSH 102 or permission of the instructor.
A continuation of YDSH 102/JWST 032, Beginning Yiddish II, this course develops the skills of reading, writing, and speaking Yiddish on the intermediate level through the study of grammar and cultural materials, such as literature, newspapers, films, songs, radio programs.
Instructor: Kathryn Hellerstein
Intermediate Yiddish II
YDSH 1 04 / JWST 034
Prerequisite(s): YDSH 103 or permission of the instructor.
Continuation of YDSH 103. Emphasis on reading texts and conversation.
Instructor: Kathryn Hellerstein
Readings in Modern Yiddish Literature
YDSH 108 / JWST438
Pre-requisite YDSH 104 or permission of instructor
Instructor: Kathryn
Hellerstein
Translating Cultures: Literature on and in Translation
GRMN 010-301 / COML430 / JWST409
"Languages are not strangers to one another," writes the great critic and translator Walter Benjamin. Yet two people who speak different languages have a difficult time talking to one another, unless they both know a third, common language or can find someone who knows both their languages to translate what they want to say. Without translation, most of us would not be able to read the Bible or Homer, the foundations of Western culture. Americans wouldn't know much about the cultures of Europe, China, Africa, South America, and the Middle East. And people who live in or come from these places would not know much about American culture. Without translation, Americans would not know much about the diversity of cultures within America. The very fabric of our world
depends upon translation between people, between cultures, between texts.
With a diverse group of readings—autobiography, fiction, poetry, anthropology, and literary theory—this course will address some fundamental questions about translating language and culture. What does it mean to translate? How do we read a text in translation? What does it mean to live between two languages? Who is a translator? What are different kinds of literary and cultural translation? What are their principles and theories? Their assumptions and practices? Their
effects on and implications for the individual and the society?
updated: 03/02/2006