Entertaining America: Jews and Hollywood
Tuition: $360 | YIVO members: $270**
This is a live, online course held on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 25 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, recordings of class sessions, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in English, and any readings will be in English.
Instructor: J. Hoberman
Immigrant Jews mainly from Eastern Europe, their children and grandchildren, played an extraordinary role in the creation of the American motion picture industry. This five-session course will explore the relationship between Jews and Hollywood, as producers, artists, and symbolic figures. Subjects include the origin of Hollywood, the casting of Jews as “oriental” Others, assimilation, nativism, anti-fascism, the Red Scare, and Jewish comedy. Films to discuss may include The Jazz Singer, The Great Dictator, Gentleman’s Agreement, Body and Soul, and more.
Course Materials:
The instructor will provide all course materials digitally throughout the class on Canvas.
J. Hoberman is an author, teacher, and film critic (33 years at The Village Voice). His many books include Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds, The Red Atlantis: Communist Culture in the Absence of Communism, and, with Jeffrey Shandler, Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting, written for the 2003 exhibition at the Jewish Museum. A contributor to the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe and POLIN Museum’s Legacy of Polish Jews, Professor Hoberman taught for many years at the Cooper Union, as well as NYU, the University of Hawaii, Harvard University and currently, Columbia University, where his most recent graduate seminars have been devoted to documentary activism. He continues to contribute film criticism to The Nation, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times. His most recent book is a monograph on the Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup. Many years ago, he had a paid internship at YIVO.
**Become a member today, starting at $54 for one year, and pay the member price for classes! You’ll save on tuition for this course and more on future classes and public programs tickets.