Representations of the Holocaust in Literature and Film

3 units

As the Holocaust recedes into the historical past, our knowledge of the event becomes increasingly dominated by literary and cinematic representations of it. This course focuses on such depictions of the Holocaust in literature and film and raises a number of provocative questions: What does it mean to represent the horror of the Holocaust? Can one effectively depict the event in realistic terms, or do unrealistic representations work better? What happens to the history of the Holocaust when it becomes the subject of a fictional text? Who is authorized to speak for the victims? Are representations of perpetrators appropriate? What types of representations will help us to remember the Holocaust in the twenty-first century? We will grapple with these challenging questions by examining both literary texts by American, European and Israeli authors from a range of genres, including survivor memoirs, fictional narratives, a graphic novel, drama and poetry, and a number of films that depict the Holocaust.