Teaching

Introduction to modern European Jewish history (1780-present). Topics include ghettos, emancipation, assimilation, antisemitism, racism, persecution, Zionism and Israel, refugees and displaced persons, and European Jewish communities after 1945. Four weeks of the course focus on the Holocaust: survivor testimony, Jewish responses to the Holocaust, and representations of the Holocaust in film and Jewish literature. The course also explores present and future options for twenty-first-century European Jewish communities.

Study of representations of the Holocaust across film genres and in other media. Both the events of the 1930s-1940s (Nazi persecution, ghettos, camps, killing centers) and the field of Holocaust memory and representation are a central focus. Topics include: documentary films, propaganda, resistance/protest, humor/comedy, commodification, trials, revenge fantasies, and stories told and untold. Films are in a number of languages (English, German, Polish, Hebrew, Hungarian, French, Italian, etc.).

Exploration of antisemitic representations of Jews in European and American literature and film, as well as responses to specific works and figures by Jewish writers and filmmakers. Topics include Shylock; Fagin; Nazi propaganda; how names and surgery work to render someone Jewish or non-Jewish; the Jewish American Princess and Jewish Mother stereotypes; twenty-first-century stories; and the difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism.

Exploration of the history, literature, and culture of Jews in German-speaking lands. With a focus on topics including emancipation, acculturation, religion, race, women and gender, identity, anti-Semitism, and Zionism, this course also considers the impact of East European Jews and Yiddish on German culture. Texts examined range from memoirs and fiction to film, music, and art. Conducted in English on Mon-Wed; additional German component on Fridays for German Studies majors and minors.

Introduction to Yiddish literature in modern European and American contexts. Texts examined include short stories, dramas, novels, and poetry by both classic and lesser-known authors, as well as supplementary films and artwork. Topics range from the Germanic origins of the Yiddish language to representations of the shtetl and Eastern Europe, Jewish immigrants in the United States, and marginal figures with respect to gender and sexual difference.

Cultural approach to studying the 1920s and early 1930s before the Nazi Party’s rise to power, with a focus on Weimar film, photography, and art. Different texts and media forms offer insight into urbanization, post-war trauma, political unrest, revolution, inflation, new sexual freedoms, and other aspects of the encounter with modernity. Topics include cafés, cabarets, hotels, fashion, journalism, jazz, avant-garde movements, as well as the experiences of women, LGBTQ individuals, Jews, and other minority groups. Conducted in English. 

Another version of this course is taught in German as GER 340, "Modernity and the Metropolis: Weimar Berlin."

Exploration of printed words and images from the late 19th century to the present, including literary illustrations, illustrated periodicals, art with written text, posters, photobooks, early comics, and graphic novels. Topics include images as forms of propaganda and resistance; images in and of divided Germany; and representations of events in German history. Recent graphic novels demonstrate how images can tell stories of the Nazi past, Afro-German history, Turkish-German experiences, and women’s lives.

This course introduces students to the history of German film from its origins in the late nineteenth century to the present. Study of basic film terminology and theory, as well as the film cultures of the Weimar period, the Third Reich, the postwar era in East and West, and post-unification Germany in their respective social, political, and cultural contexts.

Capstone course for German Studies majors (also open to minors). Intensive study of selected aspects of German culture. Students begin working with instructor at the end of their junior year to choose individual senior thesis topics. The course culminates in a written thesis and public presentation of the thesis.