ITAS209 - Jewish Identity and Italian Culture

In the light of events like the high-profile trial of a Nazi war criminal and Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter on the responsibilities of Christians in the Holocaust, this course aims to discuss the question of Jewish identity in contemporary Italian culture. Students will read prose and poetry, essays and articles, as well as watch films that address issues such as religious and national identity in a culturally, racially, and linguistically homogeneous country like Italy. The course will also give students an overview of the formation and transformation of the Jewish community in Italian society. In addition to well-known Jewish Italian writers like Primo Levi and Giorgio Bassani, students will read pertinent works by non-Jewish writers like Rosetta Loy.

Texts:

Bassani, Giorgio. The Garden of the Finzi-Contini. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1977.
Ginzburg, Natalia. Family Sayings. New York: Arcade, 2000.
Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Levi, Primo. The Periodic Table. London: Penguin, 1985.
Loy, Rosetta. First Words: A Childhood in Fascist Italy. New York: Metropolitan, 2000.
Millu, Liana. Smoke over Birkenau. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991.
Pressburger, Giorgio. The Law of the White Spaces. New York: Granta, 1999.
Perspectives on We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoa. Philadelphia: American Jewish Committee, 1998.

The films for the course are available at the reserve desk of the library or in the library of the Italian Department (FND 224).

A package of extra texts and articles related to the course subject will be distributed during the semester.

Course Requirements:

Attendance and participation.

Even if students miss a class they will be expected to read the material assigned for that week.

Students are expected to write a one-page paper every week in response to the readings assigned for that week.

The Midterm exam will be an in-class written examination in response to a set of general questions on the course's subject.

The final paper may be a longer version of one of the earlier response papers or something completely new. It consists of two stages, draft and final version. After consulting with me on a topic, students will write a draft that must be turned in by the end of Nov.. Taking into account my comments on the first draft - which will bear on style as well as content - students will then turn in a final version of the paper which will count as 50% of their course grade. The other 50% will be made up of attendance, participation, preparation, and the midterm. The final paper is due by the end of the exam period.