JHIS 1486: The Holocaust

Abstract

“I saw that the deeds of the enemy were evil beyond the power of the imagination. The power of the imagination is stronger than the power of deeds, except for the evil of the nations, which goes beyond all imagination.” So expounds the mysterious narrator of S. Y. Agnon’s short story “The Sign”(1962). This course invites students to consider “the power of the imagination” in the face of a historical event that we often refer to as “unfathomable evil.” We will read an array of examples of Holocaust literature: memoir, testimony, drama, and fiction, and we will discuss the goals and effectiveness of depicting the Holocaust in language. What are the artistic, historical, religious, and moral implications of representing the Holocaust? In representing the Holocaust, what should a literary work prioritize? Emotional reaction? Truthfulness? And, along broader terms, what is the relationship between language and the past? The syllabus includes works from a cross-section of literary genres and languages (all in English translation) and from various points in history (that is, works written both during and after the war).