HEBREW 61/JWST 40/FILM 42
Topics in Modern Hebrew Literature
Film, fiction and the Israeli Reality
Spring 2001, 10A
Lewis Glinert
Office: 305 Bartlett Hall
Office hours: Tu. 1-2, Th 1-2
Description
This course explores Israeli cinema and literature in the context of their social and historical backdrop of state-building, creation of an Israeli identity, war, secular-religious strife, and the Holocaust. In seeking to build a society on a radically self-reliant, secular Jewish self-image, Israelis have created a culture that is a complex interplay of traditional Jewish cultures, Mid Eastern, Western and East European motifs, and features that are uniquely Israeli. At the same time, the arts have undergone a precipitous shift from a national Zionist consensus to an introspective or cosmopolitan individualism, due in part to growing war-weariness and loss of ideology.
75% of the course will be devoted to film.
We will consider in detail the evolution of Israeli cinema thematically, its self-image and its place in Israeli society. We will also examine issues in rendering fiction into film, in Oz's My Michael and Kaniuk's Himmo King of Jerusalem .
Assessment
Four 2-page essays (40% of the grade)
One final 10-page project (40% of the grade)
Two quizzes on Israeli cinema in general, based on Kronish's book (20% of the grade)
The essays and project are to be typed in Geneva 10 pt, double-spaced.
You will also be asked, at random, to report on films you have just studied. The quality of your report may affect your final grade.
Reading
The following books are required and can be purchased at the bookstore:
- Kronish, Amy World Cinema: Israel, Madison [N.J.] : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press1996
The following have been placed on 24-hour reserve in Baker Library:
FICTION
- Kaniuk, Yoram. Himmo, King of Jerusalem. Translated from the Hebrew by Yosef Shachter. [1st ed.] New York, Atheneum, 1969.
- Oz, Amos. My Michael. Fontana 1975.
- Kishon, Efraim. Unfair to Goliath. Penguin, 1971.
CRITICISM
- Kronish, Amy World Cinema: Israel, Madison [N.J.] : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press1996
- Shohat, Ella Israeli Cinema: East and West and the Politics of Representation , U of Texas Press, 1989
Israeli and Palestinian identities in history and literature. New York : St. Martin's Press, 1999.
- Gertz, Nurith. From Jew to Hebrew: The Zionist "Narrative" in the Israeli Cinema of the 1940s and 1950s, Israel Affairs, (Spring 1998) 175-200.
- Gertz, Nurith "The Impact of the Holocaust on Israeli Ideological Models," Remembering for the future (Oxford & New-York: Pergamon Press), pp. 132-139, 1988.
- Gertz, Nurith. Historical Memory: Israeli Cinema and Literature in the 1980s and 1990s,î in Kevin Avruch & Walter P. Zenner, eds. Critical Essays on Israeli Society, Religion, and Government: Books on Israel, vol. 4, (New York: State University of New York Press), 200 Ð 226
- Gertz, Nurith. "A Study of My Michael by Amos Oz," Hasifrut, 22 (April), 1-17, 1976. (Hebrew with English summary.)
- Sagiv, Assaf. Dionysius in Zion. Azure 9, 2000: 155-180
BACKGROUND HISTORY
- Elon, Amos. The Israelis: Founders and Sons. Penguin 1971
- Sachar, Howard Morley. A history of Israel : from the rise of Zionism to our time. New York : A.A. Knopf, 1996.
Schedule
Readings should be completed by the date specified.
There will be no class on Tues May 29, and two replacement x hrs will be scheduled.
Week1, March 27/29: Introduction/Early Zionist narratives
Two overviews: The history of Modern Israel; the evolution of Israeli cinema and fiction
The film They were Ten
Smilansky Squatters Rights in Penueli Hebrew Short Stories, vol. 1, 182-191
Brenner The Way Out in Alter Modern Hebrew Literature, 141-157
Aronson. 'Toil and despair: Poetry of the Third Aliyah', Ariel 38, 105-110
Elon, ch 6, pp 106-147
Week 2, Apr 3/5: The War of Independence:
The film Hill 24 Doesn't Answer
Tammuz The Swimming Contest in The Oxford Book of Hebrew Short Stories, 127-138
Shamir's play He Walked in the Fields
Elon, ch 8, pp 189-221
Week 3, Apr 10/12: Childhood, adolescence and a shifting set of values:
The film Noa at 17
The film The Wooden Gun
Gur's novel Murder on a Kibbutz [extracts].
Week 4 , Apr 17/19 The melting pot:
Kishon's film Sallah
Kishon's satirical stories Unfair to Goliath
Week 5, Apr 24/26: The Six Day War:
the film Siege
Yehoshua The Last Commander in The Oxford Book of Hebrew Short Stories,220-236
Elon, ch 9, pp. 222-255
Week 6, May 1/3: Arab and Jew:
The film Hamsin,
Amos Oz's novel My Michael
The film version of My Michael
Elon, ch 10, pp 256-289
Week 7, May 8/10: Responses to the Holocaust:
The film Summer of Aviya,
The film Under the Domim Tree
Liebrecht Morning in the Park with Nannies in The Oxford Book of Hebrew Short Stories, 387-396
Week 8, May 15/17: Demythologizing the national struggle:
Kaniuk's novella Himmo King of Jerusalem
The film version of Himmo King of Jerusalem
the film Late Summer Blues
Katriel Communal Webs, ch. 2 on gibbush.
Week 9, May 22/24: Cinema of the Gulf War:
The film Song of the Siren
* If you have any questions about this course, you can reach Prof. Glinert at Lewis.H.Glinert@Dartmouth.EDU.
Back to Hebrew at Dartmouth home.