This course will study Russian and East European science fiction's cultural, historical, and political contexts, examining how the genre comments upon the texts’ present historical moment and imagines new possibilities. Special attention is given to “the jews” of the East European imagination. The final part of the course will explore the experience of Jewish cultural assimilation in European societies, which forced individuals of Jewish extraction to confront the Christian and post-Christian discourse of “jewish” difference. All readings are in English. We examine the responses of artists and intellectuals of Jewish extraction (Sholem Aleichem, Babel, Bialik, Heine, Kafka, Mandelshtam, Sforim, Zhabotinskii, etc.) to cultural secularization and modernity. Taught in English. Readings in English.
This course will study Russian and East European science fiction's cultural, historical, and political contexts, examining how the genre comments upon the texts’ present historical moment and imagines new possibilities. Special attention is given to “the jews” of the East European imagination. The final part of the course will explore the experience of Jewish cultural assimilation in European societies, which forced individuals of Jewish extraction to confront the Christian and post-Christian discourse of “jewish” difference. All readings are in English. We examine the responses of artists and intellectuals of Jewish extraction (Sholem Aleichem, Babel, Bialik, Heine, Kafka, Mandelshtam, Sforim, Zhabotinskii, etc.) to cultural secularization and modernity. Taught in English. Readings in English.
