GMST 017. First Year Seminar: Testimonial Literature

 
This course explores the notion of testimony as an important aspect of a literature of resistance.  We investigate how testimony intertwines with questions of writing and truth, and creates a response to cultural violence. Students read theories and literature of resistance and testimony in a wide-ranging selection of time periods and cultures, from the formation of a philosophical and religious idea of testimony in antiquity (Greek and Judeo-Christian traditions) to its later development in the theories of Emmanuel Levinas. We will also study the emergence of the literary notion of testimony by analyzing works of poetry, narrative, and film, with a particular focus on Jewish responses to the Shoah, and Latin American and Latino responses to political and social repression.
Eligible for PEAC
Fall 2016. Bettray.

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