Global Arc

What we do or do not eat and where we eat, are questions linked to anthropological and cultural matters. In a socio-political context, food, or the lack thereof, defines a society and its inadequacies. It becomes an agent of power, a metaphor for sex and gender, as well as a means of community. Whether as desire or transgression, whether corporal or spiritual, the representation of food is the depiction of Italian life. This course will examine translated Italian texts, along with visual art and film, in order to explore the function of eating, both as biological necessity as well as metaphor, within Italian society.

"Will we have a machine capable of replacing the poet and the author?" the Italian writer Italo Calvino asked in 1967, predicting that computers would write "literature." In 1962 poet Nanni Balestrini instructed a computer to write a poem eager to hear "the voice of the machine." Thanks to ChatGPT, GPT3 and AI, novels, non-fiction books, media, music and videos are composed through algorithms in a digital Renaissance. How do we instruct a computer to write a novel? Should we use algorithms or machine learning? Class will experiment with machine writing, its role on disinformation and the polarization of politics.

Investigation of a major theme or author, with special attention to formal structures and intellectual context. Topics may range from the medieval chivalric tradition in such Renaissance masterpieces as Ariosto's Orlando Furioso to a reading of the writings of Primo Levi as these examine the issue of the annihilation of the personality. Prerequisite: a 200-level course in Italian or instructor's permission.

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.

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.

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.

Students will achieve a basic ability to read the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in its original language. During the semester, students will learn the script and grammar, develop a working vocabulary, and master the standard dictionaries while reading passages from the Bible itself. Two 90-minute classes.

This course explores the relationship between religion and violence in the ancient Mediterranean world. We will investigate how the shifting discourses and practices of religiously-motivated violence directed both at the self and the other shaped the social, cultural and political histories of specific groups within ancient Mediterranean society. Of special interest will be the emergence of Jewish and Christian traditions of martyrdom against their biblical and Graeco-Roman backgrounds and the impact of the Christianization of the Roman Empire on the relationship between political power, religiously-motivated violence, and communal identity.