📚 The Year of the Qualifying Exams

I recently became a PhD Candidate at the University of Cincinnati; I passed my qualifying exams on March 6th, 2023. It was a grueling and nerve-racking process that resulted in mixed feedback and needless stress; but in the end, I survived, and I made it through. Below is a copy of my exam list for posterity's sake. Now, onto the dissertation . . . 

Area 1: Jewish-American Literature and Film

Category One: Contemporary Jewish-American Fiction

Jewish-American Texts

●       Heller, Catch-22

●       Heller, Howe and Hummel

●       Roth, American Pastoral

●       Roth, Operation Shylock

●       Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint

●       Ozick, The Puttermesser Papers

●       Ozick, The Shawl

●       Jong, Fear of Flying

●       Malamud, Short Stories

●       Malamud, The Assistant

●       Broder, Milk Fed

●       Auslander, Foreskin’s Lament

●       Auslander, Short Stories

●       Kushner, Angels in America

●       Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman is in T

●       Apple, The Jew of Home Depot

●       Roth, Henry. Call it Sleep

●       Paley, Collected Stories

●       Bellow, Herzog

●       Kahan, Abraham, Yekl*

●     Lazarus, Complete Poems

●       Schulman, Rat Bohemia

●       Goodman, The Chalk Artist

●       Spiegelman, Maus

●       Singer, Isaac, Collected Stories

●       Chabon, Kavalier and Clay

●       Krauss, Nicole, History of Love

●       Wiesel, Night

Jewish-American Films

●       Deren, Meshes of the Afternoon*

●       May, Elaine. The Heartbreak Kid

●       Silver, Joan. Hester Street

●       Seligman, Emma. Shiva Baby

●       Nichols, Mike. Catch-22

●       Allen, Woody. Annie Hall

●       Allen, The Purple Rose of Cairo

●       Rogen, Seth. An American Pickle

●       Waititi, Taika. JoJo Rabbit

●       Brooks, Mel. Blazing Saddles.

●       Brooks, Mel. The Producers.

Category Two: Jewish History, Culture, Race, and Theory

●       Ozick, Critics, Monsters, Fanatics

●       Roth Unbound

●       Roth, “Writing American Fiction”

●       Roth, “Reading Myself and Others”

●       Cambridge Companion to JAL

●       Schreir, Ben. The Impossible Jew

●       Glaser, Borrowed Voices

●       Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory

●       Freedman, Klezmer America

●       Rubinstein, Rachael, Members of the Tribe

●       Lambert, Josh, Unclean Lips

●       Sollors, Werner. Beyond Ethnicity

●       Wallrabenstein, Deborah. Sounds

●       Diner, Hasia, A New Promised Land

●       Wenger, Beth, The Jewish Americans

●       Diner, Hasia, The Jews of the United States

●       Goldstein, Eric. The Price of Whiteness

●       Templeton, Peter. “‘Why Don’t You Just Say it as Simply as that?’: The Progression of Parrhesia in the Early Novels of Joseph Heller.”

●       Garrett, Leah. “1961 and the New Liberalism: Catch-22.” Young Lions

●       Desser, David. American-Jewish Filmmakers: Traditions and Trends

●       Resnick. New Jews?: Race and American Jewish Identity

●       Freedman, Jews and Film

Area 2: Contemporary American Literature

Category One: Contemporary American Fiction

Humor

●       Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

●       Saunders, Tenth of December

●       Ferris, The Unnamed

●       Ferris, Rise Again at a Decent Hour

●       Chabon, Yiddish Policeman’s Union

●       Franzen, The Corrections

●       Toole, Confederacy of Dunces

●       Twain, Huckleberry Finn*

African-American

●       Everett, Erasure

●       Beatty, The Sellout

●       Toomer, Cane*

●       Wright, Uncle Tom’s Children

●       Wright, Native Son

●       Morrison, Beloved

●       Whitehead, Nickel Boys

●       Ellison, Invisible Man*

●       Butler, Kindred

Major Works

●       Robinson, Housekeeping

●       Robinson, Gilead

●       McCarthy, Blood Meridian

●       Diaz, Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

●       Atwood, Handmaid’s Tale

●       Powers, The Overstory

●       DeLillo, White Noise

●       Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

●       Updike, Bech: A Book

●       Moore, Lorrie, Birds of America

●       Kushner, The Flamethrowers

Category Two: Directions in Contemporary American Literature

Themes in American Literature

●       Cox, Sandra. An Ethics of Reading

●       Grattan, Sean Astin. Hope isn't stupid

●       Gomaa, Dalia. The Non-National

●       Oliver-Rotger, Identity, Diaspora and Return in American Literature

●       Grmusa, Lovorka. Memory and Identity in Post/modern AL

●       Lovalerie King and Shirley Moody-Turner. CAAL: the living canon

Criticism and Nonfiction Essays

●       Hidalgo Downing, Laura. “How to Do Things with Contradiction: Humour”

●       Morrison, Playing in the Dark

●       Updike, Review of Operation Shylock

●       Franzen, What if We Stopped Pretending?

●       Robinson, What Are We Doing Here?

●       Kahan, The White Negress

●       Rogin, Michael, Black Face, White Noise

●       Delmagori, Steven. “Super Deluxe White”

●       Taylor, Jack. “The Political Subjection of Bigger Thomas”

●       Vivienne Westbrook and Shun-liang Chao. Humour in the arts

●       Balkun, Mary. American Counterfeit

●       Krijnen, Joost. Holocaust impiety

●       Atwood, In Other Worlds

Optional Texts:

●        Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin

●       Confessions of Nat Turner, William Styron, 1960

●       A Calling for Charlie Barnes, Joshua Ferris

●       I Married a Communist, Philip Roth

●       The Jazz Singer

●       Hungry Hearts, Anzia Yiserska

●       Jews Without Money, Mike Gould

●       Mind-Body Problem, Rebecca Goldstein