Wrding Yr Identity: Jewish Lit

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Who are you? How do you understand and define yourself? These questions lie at the heart of the process of identity formation, and this course will not conclusively and permanently answer them. How could it? Identity develops and changes throughout a lifetime. That said, you will learn to see, analyze, and use the writing process as a primary tool that can help answer these questions again and again, whenever they arise. In this way, a body of literature is, in part, a record of a group’s identity development. Turning to the model of Jewish literature—fiction and poetry—as an example of how a people uses writing to preserve and challenge its cultural and religious identity, we’ll jumpstart your own explorations, which will happen through thought, conversation, and writing, both creative and analytical.