SLAV6060 · Slavic & Eastern Languages and Literatures
Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences
An overview of the history and legacy of the Shoah (Holocaust) followed by an examination of the variety of literary responses by literary witnesses and survivors, as well as by writers removed from the wartime horrors by distance, time, country, and language. Questions of metaphysics, ideology, ethics, aesthetics, memory, and cultural theory as formulated and debated in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and discursive writings. The readings include works originally written in Russian, Yiddish, Polish, German, Italian, French, and English by Ilya Selvinsky, Vasily Grossman, Ilya Ehrenburg, Avrom Sutzkever, Tadeusz Borowski, Paul Celan, Primo Levi, Theodor Adorno, Elie Wiesel, Vladimir Nabokov, Hannah Arendt, Arthur Miller, W. G. Sebald and others. All the required readings will be in English translation.
Course experience
Averages use the original five-point historical evaluation scale.
Organization
4.9 / 5
How well the course was organized
Challenge
4.8 / 5
How intellectually challenging students found it
Attendance
4.8 / 5
How necessary attendance was
Assignments
5.0 / 5
How helpful assignments were
Weekly effort
—
hours per week
Estimated from the original workload response buckets. Individual sections may differ.
Instructor options
Ratings below reflect the evaluations connected to this course.
Across time
Available section-level results across semesters.
Fall 2023
1 sectionFall 2021
1 sectionFall 2020
1 section