Global Arc

Trauma has become a part of our everyday lives with the pandemic, mass shootings, police brutality, etc. What is the role of researchers, reporters, filmmakers, and museum workers in mitigating the effects of trauma on individuals and communities? Throughout this course, students will learn how to conduct trauma informed interviews, interpret, and present their findings in a safe and respectful way that can facilitate healing rather than increase the pain. By the end of the course, students will be expected to develop their own interview-based research project.

Starting with ancient Israel's radically new conceptions of the divine, morality, and history, this course explores the complex nature of Judaism and its development as a religion and culture over millennia--a development marked by internal debates and external challenges to continuity and survival. Emphasis is on the traditional bases of Judaism, such as religious beliefs and practices, interpretations of sacred texts, and shared communal values. Attention also to the variety of Jewish encounters with modernity, philosophy, secularism, and non-Jewish cultures. Two classes, one preceptorial.

Introduces students to the classical Jewish tradition through a close reading of portions of some of its great books, including the Bible, rabbinic midrash, the Talmud, Rashi's commentary on the Torah (probably the most influential Bible commentary among Jews ever), the Zohar (the central work of Kabbalah), and the Guide for the Perplexed (Maimonides's great philosophical work). Students will consider what these works say about the relationship between revelation and interpretation in Jewish tradition and how they come to define that tradition. Two 90-minute classes.

This course traces the history of Jewish mysticism and magic from the Hebrew Bible to the flourishing of the Kabbalah in medieval Europe. We will consider such historical problems as: the roots of the Jewish mystical tradition in Israelite prophecy; rabbinic attitudes toward secret knowledge and ecstatic practice; and the emergence of the Kabbalah against the background of Jewish rationalist philosophy. The course also considers such thematic questions as: the relationship between literary expression and mystical experience; the power of speech and language in Jewish magic; and gender, sexuality, and the body in Jewish mysticism.

Through fiction and film, the course explores the key topics in Israeli society and culture: the construction of the sabra, kibbutz and collectivist ideology, the impact of the Holocaust, military service and traumatic memory, gender and women's writing, Sephardim and Mizrahim, Israeli-Palestinian relations, and the religion nationalism and ultra-Orthodoxy.

Jews have often been thought of as a "nation without art," who disparaged the visual and discouraged artistic creation. But the reality is very different: Judaism has a rich tradition of artistic production as well as a long history of reflection on the role that objects and images should play in religious life. Using both textual and artistic sources, this course explores the nature and function of art in ancient Judaism, from the Hebrew Bible to the end of late antiquity. A particular focus will be on Jewish attitudes toward and engagement with the visual and material cultures of the wider societies in which Jews lived.

Were the European Middle Ages a time of endless suffering and persecution for Jews? How did the Crusades, plague, expulsions, the Renaissance and the Reformation shape relations between Jews and Christians? Did this period lay the groundwork for modern anti-Semitism or for a kind of toleration between Jews and Christians? This course will consider these questions by studying primary source materials (in translation) with readings from current scholarship. Two 90-minute classes.

This course surveys the major concepts and historical developments of Jewish mystical traditions in the last thousand years. We will explore both theosophical (contemplative) and ecstatic (experiential) Kabbalah, including the ideas and practices of major figures, groups, and movements.

An introduction to modern Israeli history and culture through the medium of film. The course examines the transitions and changes in Israeli society over the past 60 years and presents students with some of the major themes of the Israeli experience. The history of Israel is the tale of the conflict between East and West, Arabs and Jews, and between the Jewish past and the Zionist ethos. It is the story of a transformation from a highly mobilized nation to a modern, self-doubting and pluralistic society that openly questions its past and constituting myths. Israeli cinema is a reflection of this history and culture. One three-hour seminar.

The seminar, normally taken in the junior year, explores in depth a theme, issue, or problem in Jewish studies, often from a comparative perspective. Possible topics include gender and the family, comparative diasporas, messianic ideas and movements, Jewish history, anti-Semitism, authority, leadership, and conflict in Judaism, Jewish literature, Jewish popular culture. One three-hour seminar.