Monday, Wednesday, Friday 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

• Alien Hearths: European Culture and the Jewish Diaspora
  Jewish Studies
  
• 3 INTL 4000- or 6000-level credit hours
• Tomas Kraus
  Syllabus


• We will consider the history and culture of Bohemian and Moravian Jews, one of the most important Jewish communities in Europe. Lectures will focus on Jewish participation in milestone events of European and Czech history, as well as on portraits of important Jewish personalities whose contributions helped shape the "Old World."
  
  The first two weeks will be devoted to the history of Jewish communities in the Czech Lands from early settlements until the third decade of the 20th Century; the third week will focus on the Holocaust, and the final week on modern history and contemporary themes. Lectures will be informed, in part, by David Altshuler's Precious Legacy (Summit Books, New York: 1983), Michael Berebaum's The World Must Know (Little Brown, Boston/Toronto/London: 1993), Lawrence L. Langer's Art from the Ashes (Oxford UP, New York: 1995), Yehuda Bauer's A History of the Holocaust (Franklin Watts, New York: 1982), Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners (Knof, New York: 1996), and Deborah E. Lipstadt's Denying the Holocaust (The Free Press, New York: 1993). Students are strongly encouraged at least to consult these texts before arriving in Prague, as well as other general histories of European Jewry.

Mother Tongue, Motherland: Czech Literature as Czech Identity--(CLOSED--FULL ENROLLMENT)
Czech Literature
3 ENGL 5970 credit hours
Petr Bilek
Syllabus

• Since they were nestled in the Hapsburg Empire, the Czech lands have experienced three incarnations, the first two preceded by cataclysm. Bohemian culture is old, but Czech national identity has never progressed, figuratively speaking, past adolescence. We will consider Czech literature in this context of the nascent nature of Czech identity in the twentieth century.
  
  After glossing the historical context of Czech literature, we will focus on primary texts of the 20th Century. Kafka's The Trial, Hrabal's Too Loud a Solitude, and Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being will serve as core texts that will be supplemented by handouts.

• This class is devoted not only to close reading of the selected texts, but also to relevant social issues. While the approach and methods are interdisciplinary, the main emphasis is on literary theory (explaining and applying basic literary terms), literary history (both American and European), and literary criticism (analyzing different responses to given works). Every class begins with an oral presentation delivered by a student, then a short lecture by the professor, and a discussion follows.
  
  The objective of this class is to study canonical works of American literature, stressing European perspectives. We shall see how the individual works were translated and received in the Czech cultural context. The students must be willing to read, analyze and discuss all the assigned texts for every single class.
  
  Note: For each of these classes, a final grade will be determined by:
  
  
  • Attendance
  • Quality of classroom participation (to the extent that classroom participation is encouraged or required)
  • The quality of a journal. The journal should include commentary on the reading required for the course, lecture notes, and critiques of and/or commentaries on class visits and the PSP Lecture Series
  
  The PSP academic director will evaluate the journals in collaboration with instructors, and give each student broad latitude as to the nature of her or his entries in the journal, as well as to its overall structure.