Black Jewish Memoirs in America

Catalog description

In this course we will dive into the stories of BlackAmerican memoirists who each possess varying, complex personal relationships to their Jewish identities. Through a close reading of four memoirs, with critical anthropological grounding in Katya Gibel Mevorach’s path breaking monograph Black, Jewish and Interracial, we will examine the intimate ways in which our selected memoirists’ stories align with and diverge from Black and Jewish collective experiences and memory in the contemporary US. As we make our way through the semester, we will also have the opportunity to meet with and learn from contemporary creatives who are making art at the intersection of their Black and Jewish identities.