JWST/RLGN 173: Introducing Judaism

Alanna Cooper- MW 12:45-2:00

Judaism – like all religions – structures the way its adherents view the world and inhabit it. In this course we will explore five aspects of the human experience and interrogate the ways in which the religion provides a framework for navigating each one. TIME: How is time marked and measured? SPACE: What sort of cultural work is done to create religious and cultural home/s? THE DIVINE: How might God be described and understood? And what is the nature of the relationship between the Divine and humanity? TEXTS: What are the Jewish sacred texts? When did they appear and who authored them? How are they read, studied and understood? COMMUNITY: What are the contours of the “Jewish Community” and how are boundaries drawn between who is “in” and who is “out”?

JWST/HSTY/ETHS/RLGN 254: The Holocaust

Jay Geller- TR 11:30-12:45

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.

JWST/WLIT 285: Land-Identity-Nation: An Introduction to Israeli Literature

Nadav Linial– TR 11:30-12:45

This course explores Israeli literature from the establishment of the state in 1948 to the present day. We will examine the evolution of Hebrew literary production as it encountered the Mediterranean landscape and developed into a vehicle of vernacular literary expression. Topics include secular cultural expression and religious tradition; gender and ethnicity; political ideology and its discontents. Alongside primary literary sources in translation we will read background sources about Israeli history and culture, and critical readings about literature theory. Students will master basic introductory materials relating to Israeli history and culture, with attention to how literature has served as a platform that both shapes and reflects national identity formation. Students will also gain sensitivity and facility in analyzing specific elements of literary form, especially as related to genre, voice and narrative.

JWST/WLIT 380: From Maus to The Rabbi’s Cat: The Jewish Graphic Novel

Barbara Mann- MW 12:45-2:00

The graphic novel has emerged in recent years as a key text in Jewish cultural discourse. Though related to the array of superheroes and other comic book figures created by American Jewish artists from the mid-20th century, the Jewish graphic novel — a book-length, illustrated narrative — has taken off in the last couple of decades as a genre unto itself. This trend shares interesting connections with graphic novels engaging other ethnic and cultural histories, yet the sheer proliferation of titles by Jewish authors, with expressly Jewish themes and content, points to a meaningful shift: consonant with the observed move from brick-and-mortar forms of institutional affiliation to other kinds of communities, the graphic novel also marks the birth of a new form of Jewish storytelling. Indeed, defined by the co-narration of text and image, the graphic novel seems equally at home in print and online, making it potent creative force in postmodern culture. At the same time, the graphic novel as a genre may also recall traditional forms of Jewish iconography (e.g. illuminated manuscripts, the Passover hagadah) in ways both confounding and familiar. The course will tackle this paradox head on but will not attempt to resolve it. Students will read graphic novels for their critical attention to central themes, and their place within Jewish history; we will also learn how to navigate the challenges of “reading” discrete volumes shaped by both word and image. Attention will be paid to the formal aspects of storytelling and narrative construction, as well as the contextual frame necessary for understanding work published nearly-simultaneously in three different geographic/cultural settings (US, France and Israel).