| Description |
Jewish American playwrights have contributed to American drama for a long time. But it was only since the beginning of the twentieth century that what may be called Jewish American drama began to emerge. The origins of this development arguably are to be seen in the rise to prominence of Yiddish drama among Jewish immigrants in America at the end of the nineteenth century. Subsequent decades saw in conjunction with progressive acculturation the slow demise of Yiddish theater culture, but simultaneously, and especially since the last quarter of the twentieth century, also the proliferation of plays by Jewish playwrights which contributed not only to the majority culture, but which may also be designated specifically Jewish American.
What makes the dramatic imagination of Jews in America sufficiently distinct so it may be described as Jewish American drama rather than plays by American Jews? What does it mean when previously supposedly isolated voices appear to coalesce into a distinct tradition? How may this tradition be described? How can its specificity be established? How can the danger of essentialism be skirted? What are the repercussions for the larger phenomenon of American drama? In this seminar, we will discuss these and more questions with particular focus on thematic preoccupations of Jewish American drama, such as identity, assimilation, family, and intergenerational conflict as well as the legacy of the Holocaust and the clash between secularism and orthodoxy; but we will also look at cross-cultural fertilization, and cultural sustainability as well as that most elusive and problematic of terms: Jewishness.
Required Reading: Individual texts must be read and prepared for discussion for the respective seminar sessions (see schedule on ILIAS); please note that play texts are generally much shorter than novels – the workload is much less than it seems! Texts will be provided.
• Mordecai Manuel Noah, She Would Be a Soldier (1819) [this text is not obligatory; it offers an early example of a popular play by a Jewish writer that was patriotically American rather than Jewish, though its author quixotically sought a solution to the global Jewish plight by attempting to establish a Jewish state on Grand Island in the Niagara River just a few years later.]
• Jacob Gordin, The Jewish King Lear (1892; see Shakespeare, King Lear)
• Jacob Gordin, God, Man, and the Devil (1900)
• Aaron Hoffman, Welcome Stranger (1920)
• Rose Franken, Another Language (1932)
• Paddy Chayefsky, The Tenth Man (1959; see S. An-sky, The Dybbuk)
• Arthur Miller, Incident at Vichy (1964)
• Wendy Wasserstein, Isn’t it Romantic (1981)
• Herb Gardner, Conversations with my Father (1992)
• Daniel Goldfarb, Adam Baum and the Jew Movie (2000; see Elia Kazan [dir.], Gentleman’s Agreement) |
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