Global Arc

This course explores how the environment and health are perceived to interact, and how technologies have been designed to mediate that relationship. We will consider the intersection of health, technology, and the environment from colonial medicine in the 19th century, to international health, to present day concepts of global health. We will critically examine the historical actors, institutions, value systems, and policy decisions that led to the present climate crisis and the unequal burden it imposes on some populations relative to others and elaborate on implications of a shift to the idea of planetary health.

What makes a pandemic? COVID-19 has illuminated inequities and unpreparedness of global health mechanisms and national health provision systems, and put ways of predicting and preventing catastrophes under scrutiny. While preventable and treatable diseases such as AIDS remain pandemic and take millions of lives yearly, they no longer mobilize the emergency-based governance responses, financial resources, media attention, and modes of surveillance that COVID-19 does. We will examine frameworks, rationales, values, forms of knowledge, collaboration, governance and surveillance around which pandemics coalesce and are also eventually forgotten.

Introductory course develops skills of reading, speaking, comprehension, and writing through various techniques, with an emphasis on a solid grammatical basis and awareness of idiomatic usage of the language. Teaching materials include ones developed in Israel. Five classes. No credit is given for HEB 101 unless followed by HEB 102.

A continuation of 101, with emphasis on the development of all skills. The course will expose students to contemporary Israeli culture by using authentic material such as films, TV series, newspaper articles, and Web-based material. Class activities include role-playing, drills, group discussion, and oral presentations. Five classes.

Expansion of reading, oral, aural, and written skills, as well as coverage of more advanced grammar. Students will be gradually introduced to contemporary Israeli prose and poetry. Maximum participation by students is encouraged through discussion of readings and films. Five classes.

A continuation of 105, covering remainder of grammar. Further explores contemporary Israeli prose, poetry, and more complex essays from textbooks and photocopied material. Five classes.

This course, which is taught entirely in Hebrew, evaluates the main themes of Israeli cinema. The course will present various issues that concern Israelis today (e.g., immigration, multiculturalism, identity, Israeli-Palestinian/Arab conflict, Holocaust, Jerusalem). The goal of the course is to give students an understanding of the issues that concern Israel today by means of examining trends in Israeli cinema from the earliest films until today.

For advanced students, this course seeks to improve further the active command of written and spoken Hebrew through work with a variety of literary texts, styles, and artistic expressions, including film. Topics are selected to explore fundamental issues of Israeli culture and society. Prerequisite: 107 or instructor's permission. Two 90-minute classes.

Continuation of 301. Growing emphasis on individual and small group work. Students prepare final project of their choosing in consultation with instructor. Prerequisite: 301 or instructor's permission. Two 90-minute classes.

For students with solid grounding in Modern Hebrew. Develop proficiency in speaking, listening, reading and writing. Master complex grammatical structures, registers, idiomatic expressions, and fluency. Enhance socio-cultural understanding of Israel via virtual tour. Through texts, films, TV series, songs, and so on, become aware of relations/tensions between center and periphery, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and other contrasting interests. Speak Hebrew with structural accuracy and vocabulary to participate in most conversations on practical, social and political topics, and to navigate knowledgeably cultural checkpoints.