A subtitle of this course could be Italians, Jews, and the Holocaust. The course begins with an overview of the historical situation of Jews in Italian history and letters and then turns to specifically examine the works of Primo Levi, one of the most noted survivors of the concentration camps and one of the best custodians of the memory of the Holocaust. The course works its way from his landmark memoir of survival in Auschwitz, IF THIS BE A MAN (sometimes published under the title SURVIVAL IN AUSCHWITZ), through the prose writings of the middle period (fiction and nonfiction), including his writings on science, to the dark remembrance of Holocaust 40 years after the fact, THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED, his last work. |