History 550/Jewish Studies 499
Jews in Modern Culture
Spring 2020
Th 3:30-6:15
Professor Charles Dellheim
226 Bay State Road, # 506
617 353-8305
dellheim@bu.edu
Description: In the 19th and 20th centuries, certain Jews, who had been on the margins of European civilization, came to play a pivotal role in different realms of culture and society. Nowhere were their efforts more evident than in the making of modernism, the creative explosion that resulted in radical new forms of art and thought that emerged in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. In this seminar, we will focus on the following issues: First of all, how and why Jewish outsiders came to play so notable a role in modernism — and what this reveals about Jews and the larger society. Second, how the complex processes of assimilation and acculturation unfolded in specific cultural capitals, notably Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and Prague. Third, was there anything distinctively “Jewish” about the attitudes and activities of major figures such as Freud, Kafka, and Chagall and, if so, how did they mediate between Jewish traditions and national identities. Fourth, how the growing prominence of Jews in different spheres of European life, art, and thought provoked, or became a pretext for a furious backlash from fascist and conservative forces, who were trying to assert their own cultural control. Finally, how certain Jews and non-Jews responded to Nazi persecution during and after the Second World War.
Requirements: Attendance, engagement, and openness are all required. You will be evaluated on the basis of 1) class participation and oral reports (50%) and 2) on a c. 20 page research paper on an approved topic and on c. 1 page response papers to weekly readings. The latte must be submitted no later than the beginning of seminar each week and will be graded pass/fail (50%)
Copyright: The syllabus, course descriptions, and handouts created by Professor Dellheim and all class lectures are copyrighted by Professor Dellheim. Except with respect of enrolled students as set forth below, the materials and lectures may not be reproduced in any form or otherwise copied, displayed, or distributed, nor should works derived from them be reproduced, copied, displayed or distributed without the written permission of Professor Dellheim. Infringement of the copyright in these materials, including any sale or commercial use of notes, summaries, outlines or other reproductions of lectures, constitutes a violation of the copyright laws and is prohibited. Students enrolled in the course are allowed to share with other enrolled students course materials, notes, and other writings based on the course materials and lectures, but may not do so on a commercial basis or otherwise for payment of any kind. Please note in particular that selling or buying class notes, lecture notes or summaries, or similar materials both violates copyright and interferes with the academic mission of the College, and is therefore prohibited in this class and will be considered a violation of the student code of responsibility that is subject to academic sanctions.
Schedule:
1) Introduction (January 23)
2) Was Modernism Jewish? (January 30)
Thorstein Veblen, “The Intellectual Pre-Eminence of Jews in Modern Europe.”
Ernst Gombrich, “The Visual Arts in Vienna Circa 1900”
Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century, introduction
Norman Lebrecht, Genius and Anxiety pp. 1-xiv)
3) Paris: The Dreyfus Affair (February 6)
Readings to be assigned may include
Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past (selections)
Louis Begley, Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters.
4) Vienna: Politics and Culture (February 13)
Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday (selections)
Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, pp. 3-23, 116-80
Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State
5) Vienna: Freud (February 20)
Yosef Yerushalmi, Freud’s Moses: Analysis Terminable and Interminable
Peter Gay, A Godless Jew, pp. 115-56.
Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, pp. 181-207.
6) Berlin: Modernism and its Enemies (February 27)
Peter Gay, “Encounter with Modernism: German Jews in German Culture” in Freud, Jews and other Germans, pp. 93-168
Emily Bilski, ed., Berlin Metropolis, (selections)
7) Representing Jews (March 5)
Film: Jean Renoir, The Grand Illusion
8) Spring Break (March 12 – No Class
9) Prague: Kafka’s Trials (March 19)
Franz Kafka, The Trial
and Kafka, “Letter to his Father”
10) Paris: The Question of Jewish Art (March 26)
(Guest Speaker: Professor Jonathan Wilson, Tufts University)
Norman Kleeblatt and Kenneth Silver, eds, An Expressionist in Paris: The Paintings of Chaim Soutine (selections
11) Nazis, Jews, and Art (April 2)
Stephanie Barron, ed., Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (selections).
Charles Dellheim, “Monet’s Water Lilies, 1904: The Long Journey Home”
Archival documents
12) Paris: Under Occupation (April 9)
The Journal of Hélène Berr
13) Justice (April 16)
Philippe Sands, East-West Street: On the Origins of “Genocide” and “Crimes against Humanity
14) Reconciliation? (April 23)
Bart van Es, The Cut-Out Girl
15) Student Presentations (April 30)