The course focuses on the narratives through which Jews made sense of their lives under the impact of the forces of modernity, beginning in the "old world," and moving through the 19th century and into the 20th. The goal is to analyze how the imagination of Jewish writers was captured by the changes in social structures such as new educational, residential and occupational opportunities, leading to increased interactions with the gentile society. Students read and discuss literary works based in the shtetl in revolutionary Russia, and in America. We will also look at memoirs and letters written by ordinary Jews. All assigned texts will be in English.