Paper (25%):   This is not a research seminar, but you will be aske to write an essay based on reading outside of the course syllabus. For this assignment, each student will choose a substantive primary source --e.g., a novel, a short-story collection, an autobiography/memoir, or a political or philosophical treatise.  Your main task will be to explore and analyze the cotent of your material within its various historical contexts: social, political, biographical, and intellectual.  Pay close attention to the ways in which your source presents or articulates problems associated with Jewish "modernity." (More details about this assignment in the weeks ahead.) Rough word count: 2500 words. To be submitted as Word attachment to email on or before Friday, April 12th.

Ben Shahn: Albert Einstein among other Jewish immigrants, detail of fresco mural, Community Center at the former Jersey Homesteads, now Roosevelt, NJ, 1937–8; © Estate of Ben Shahn.