JEWISH M113
Contemporary Israeli Short Stories/Novellas and Films in English
(Same as Hebrew M113.) Lecture, three hours; laboratory, two hours. Exploration of Israeli short stories/novellas and films (translated into English) written since mid-1980s that use, each to varying degree, postmodernist techniques to undermine predominance of modernist-Zionist narrative. Recycling and reexamination of Israeli condition and Zionist condition and skepticism about legitimacy of meta-narratives to redefine blurred outline of Israeli identity and subvert its underpinning formative myths. They simultaneously display loss of faith in representative dimension of language, including ability of texts to penetrate to its hidden meaning. Using periphery discourses, these texts strive to change modernist aesthetic and power paradigm. P/NP or letter grading.