HIS 2106 - Holocaust in Film and Literature

Credits: 4
The German philosopher Theodor Adorno famously wrote that “to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric,” by which he meant that no representation was possible of such a horrific human event. And yet, there has been a relentless outpouring of film, memoirs, historical fiction and, even, poetry itself that deals directly with the Holocaust and some of which, such as the works of Italian survivor Primo Levi or Steven Spielberg’s film “Schindler’s List,” has become practically canonical. This course examines a wide range of both filmic and literary efforts to grapple with the Nazi Holocaust with a view to the larger question of the problem of representing history that seems to defy all explanation.

McDaniel Plan: Social, Cultural, and Historical Understanding; Textual Analysis