MALS 202 Reading & Viewing the Holocaust

Cultural Studies or Single-taught Interdisciplinary
Instructor: Alan Lelchuk, MALS 

How has the Holocaust been seen and viewed in literary works and in films? How well can works of art represent the nightmare of 20th century history? Can books and films, the world of the aesthetic, dramatize the history of the Holocaust, and sustain the memory adequately?

This course will  consider those questions, by means of analyzing some of the major writings and movies trying to come to terms with the unimaginable history.

In literature, we will read the fiction  of Ida Fink,  Teodor Borowski, Ilona Karmel, Elie Wiesel, Aharon Appelfeld, among others. In cinema, we will look at films such as Orson Welles ("The Stranger"), Sidney Lumet ("The Pawnbroker"), Vittoria  de Sica ("The Garden of the Finzi-Continis"), Marcel Ophuls ("The Sorrow and the Pity"),  Roman Polanski ("The Pianist").

Instructor

Alan Lelchuk