JWST/ARTH/RLGN 220: Jewish Art and Architecture
Alanna Cooper – MW 12:35-1:50
Over the course of their long history, Jews have contended with diaspora, boundary-crossing, minority status and anti-Semitism. Along the way, art and architecture have given shape to Jewish reflections on their complex social positionalities, ethical convictions, and religious longings. This course explores the critical role architects and Jewish artists have played in narrating and giving expression to these experiences. Critically, we will also examine the powerful position that artists of Jewish heritage have had in influencing the the course of modern art. Finally, we will study the ways in which Jews have been represented by others, both in anti-Semitic propaganda as well as in more sympathetic portraits, shaping popular ideas and attitudes about Jews and Jewish culture.
Skill: Communication Intensive
Perspectives:
- Moral and Ethical Reasoning
- Understanding Global Perspectives
JWST 223 /ENGL/ARTS/WLIT 233: How to Do Things with Books
Kurt Koenigsberger – M 3:10-4:25 and W 3:10-5:55
Wednesday’s class includes a mandatory lab component
This course introduces students to components of the book and bookmaking, including printing, which for centuries has been known as “the art preservative of all arts.” Primary goals of this course include ensuring the accurate and precise description of parts of books, fostering a familiarity with essential bookmaking processes, extending to some scholarly applications of bibliography, and inviting creative approaches to twenty-first century bookmaking and book modification. The course pays special attention to the interplay between lexical content, expressive form, and artistic reflection. Class sessions balance attention to scholarly and historical readings, demonstrations and explorations of media, and independent and collaborative hands-on work.
JWST/ETHS/HSTY/RLGN 254: The Holocaust
Jay Geller – MW 12:35-1:50
This class seeks to answer fundamental questions about the Holocaust, the German-led organized mass murder of nearly six million Jews and millions of other ethnic and religious minorities. It will investigate the origins and development of racism in modern European society, the manifestations of that racism, and responses to persecution. An additional focus of the course will be comparisons between different groups, different countries, and different phases during the Nazi era. The class concludes with an examination of the memory of the Holocaust.
Skill: Communication Intensive
Perspectives:
- Understanding Global Perspectives
- Human Diversity and Commonality
JWST/WGST/WLIT 381: Gender, Sexuality, and Queer Culture in Israel
Nadav Linial – TR 2:45-4:00
How do people talk about sex in Israeli culture? How have Israeli authors, artists, and filmmakers approached gender and sexuality? How do the categories of gender, sexuality, and identity map onto questions of collective memory, religion and nationalism?
Since its revival at the end of the nineteenth century, issues of gender and sexuality have stood at the forefront of Hebrew literature and culture. In this course, we discuss literary texts (short stories, novels and poems), visual art (photos, artwork and sculpture), and film that foreground the role of gender in the Israeli project of nation-building and identity construction. We track how attitudes towards gender, sex, and sexuality shifted from an implicit, coded approach to more explicit forms of expression. This shift took place across a century of Jewish immigration to Palestine/Israel and establishment in the country, and the focus on gender and sexuality allows us to discuss this history from a cultural perspective. The course also focuses on the LGBTQ+ community in Israel and its struggle for same-sex rights and gender equality, exploring the tensions between this struggle for equality and Israel’s self-identity as a democratic and Jewish state.
Skill: Communication Intensive
Perspectives:
- Understanding Global Perspectives
- Human Diversity and Commonality
HBRW 101: Elementary Modern Hebrew I
Nadav Linial – MWF 11:30-12:20
The course objective is to enable students to develop basic communicative skills in standard Modern Hebrew. Students will become acquainted with the Hebrew alphabet and vowels, and with basic grammar and vocabulary.
HBRW 201: Intermediate Modern Hebrew I
Nadav Linial- MWF 2:05-2:55
The course objective is to advance the students’ Hebrew communicative skills by studying the language in its cultural context. The focus will be on speaking, reading, and writing, with an emphasis on the use of the language as reflected in Israeli culture. Prereq: HBRW 102 or consent of department.