HIST 638 Philip Roth
This seminar will examine the major novels of Philip Roth, a giant of modern American literature. It will also cover some of his critical and non-fiction writing, establishing the literary connections to Europe and to Israel that mattered to Roth's own literary ethos. Serious attention will be devoted to the scholarly and critical reception of Roth's work. Roth's literary career runs from the late 1950s into the first decade of the twenty-first century. Multiple controversies attend (and will always attend) his work and reputation: these controversies of Jewish identity, sexuality and gender are the stuff of Roth scholarship. In addition, Roth's fiction sought to represent many of the main currents in twentieth-century U.S. history, from World War II to the assimilation of Jews to the Vietnam War to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and beyond. Where possible, this seminar will apply a historical lens to literature and attempt to extract historical insight from literature. The kind of fiction Roth wrote lends itself to this approach. Hence, this seminar should appeal to students of literature, history and politics.
Cross Listed Courses
ENG 636 & HIST 638