Fall 2023

ENGLISH

• ENGL 5559 | Contemporary Jewish Literature | Caroline Rody | TTh 3:30pm - 4:45 pm |

  • This course for graduate and advanced undergraduate students will explore a literature positioned between tradition and modern invention, between the spiritual and the mundane, and—as Saul Bellow once put it—between laughter and trembling, in the emotionally rich territory where Jewish people have lived a spirited, talkative, politically engaged, book-obsessed modernity in the face of violence and destruction.  We will read mainly Jewish American texts but also some by Jewish writers from other countries, taking up short stories, essays, poems, jokes, Broadway song lyrics, and a few complete novels, as well as short videos clips and a film, surveying a diverse array of modern Jewish literary and popular cultural production.  About the first third of the course examines early and mid-twentieth century Jewish American writers, some from the immigrant New York milieu like Isaac Bashevis Singer and immigrant Yiddish poets (in translation), and then heirs to Yiddish culture with bold American aspirations, such as Delmore Schwartz, Alfred Kazin, Grace Paley, Chaim Potok, Bernard Malamud, Elie Wiesel, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, and Lore Segal.  For the rest of the term we will read fiction from the booming field of contemporary Jewish fiction, including authors such as Art Spiegelman, Allegra Goodman, Nathan Englander, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Michael Chabon, Joshua Cohen, Christophe Boltanski, David Bezmozgis, and Etgar Keret.
    The course will focus on the ways writers shape and reshape a new literature with roots in a formidable textual, cultural, and religious tradition.  We will observe an evolving relationship to traditional and sacred Jewish texts, to Yiddish and the culture of Yiddishkeit; to memory and inheritance as burdens or as creative touchstones, to humor as a social practice and imaginative force. We will also consider changing conceptions of Jewish identity, of American identity, and of gender roles; the transformations wrought by assimilation and social mobility; socialist, feminist and other political commitments and visions; forms of engagement with history including the Holocaust, the founding of Israel and its ongoing conflicts; and life in multiethnic America. Requirements: reading, active class participation, co-leading of a class discussion, multiple short reading responses, a short paper, and a longer paper with a Talmud-inspired option: a “scroll” of interlaced commentary.

GERMAN

HEBREW

• HEBR 1410 | Elementary Biblical Hebrew I Gregory Goering | MWF 10am–10:50am

  • What’s this course about?
    Have you ever wished you could visit the land of Israel during the time of Abraham, David, or Esther? Wondered how these ancient Israelites talked, walked, thought, and felt? How they communicated their ideas about the world, their god(s), and themselves? Short of borrowing Hermione Granger’s time-turner necklace, learning biblical Hebrew…and I mean really learning Hebrew through the innovative approach of this course…is the next best thing to being there.
    Most courses in biblical Hebrew teach you about the language. Students in these courses don’t really learn how to read Hebrew; in such courses students “read” a verse in Hebrew but then return to the beginning and translate it into English in order to understand what they have “read.” (Believe me; I’ve taught Hebrew this way before.) In this course you will actually acquire the Hebrew language. That is, through a series of active learning techniques based on meaningful communication, you will internalize Hebrew to the degree that you think in Hebrew and therefore understand Hebrew as you read it, just as you are understanding this sentence in English as you are reading it.
    When you study a language, you also enter another culture’s system of meaning-making. And when you study an ancient language, you engage in a type of time travel. Through learning biblical Hebrew with me this year, you will journey to the distant past and inhabit an ancient Israelite culture, one that bequeathed us the Hebrew Bible—aka the Jewish TaNaK or Christian Old Testament.

  •  What will you learn?
    Acquiring a language involves internalizing vocabulary, rules of grammar, and syntactical structures. In most ancient language courses students usually learn these elements through brute memorization. I have designed this course, however, so that you will acquire these elements naturally, through using the language meaningfully to communicate. As a result, by the end of this course and its spring sequel, Elementary Biblical Hebrew II, you will be able to read simple biblical Hebrew prose with immediate comprehension, in Hebrew, without first translating into English. In addition, you will:
    §  communicate meaningfully in Hebrew via listening, speaking, reading, and writing;
    §  connect Hebrew vocabulary and expressions to various spheres of life in ancient Israel, such as family, food, government, economy, religion, national identity, geography, love, emotions, aesthetics, cosmology;
    §  empathize with ancient Israelites and reflect critically on similarities and differences between their communities and yours;
    §  assess how you yourself best achieve significant learning, which will help you in succeed in this course and continue learning after the course is over.
    Although acquiring biblical Hebrew will be a challenging endeavor, if you participate enthusiastically in class activities, complete diligently the learning activities assigned between classes (i.e., “homework”), and seek help as soon as you need it, I suspect you will be surprised by how quickly your Hebrew skills will develop.

HISTORY

• HIME 2559 | Modern History of Palestine/Israel | Caroline Kahlenberg | 

  • This course surveys the history of modern Palestine/Israel. Part I focuses on the Ottoman Empire, early Zionist settlement, British rule, and the Holocaust. Part II focuses on the 1948 War, known as the Israeli "War of Independence" and the Palestinian "Nakba" (Catastrophe). Part III addresses the Palestinian refugee crisis, ongoing wars between Israel and Arab states, Israeli and Palestinian societies today, and Israeli-Arab peace initiatives.
     

• HIME 3501 | Israel/Palestine Through Literature and Film | Caroline Kahlenberg | 

  • This seminar focuses on the history of Israel/Palestine through memoirs, short stories, documentaries, and feature films. We discuss several broader historical themes, including: religion and nationalism, colonialism, links between history and memory, and the meaning of “homeland.” The widespread media coverage of the Middle East and ongoing violence encourage us to take a close look at the historical processes that have shaped the region today.
    ​

• HIEU 2101 | Modern Jewish History | Caroline Kahlenberg | 

  • Survey of Jewish history from the seventeenth century to the present, primarily in Europe, but with further treatment of Jewish life in the U.S. and Israel. Major topics include Jewish historical consciousness; patterns of emancipation; religious adjustment; the role of women; anti-Semitism; Zionism; the American Jewish experience; the Holocaust; the establishment of Israel; and Jewish life in Europe after the Holocaust.
     

RELIGIOUS STUDIES 

• RELJ 1410 | Elementary Biblical Hebrew I Gregory Goering | MWF 10am–10:50am

  • What’s this course about?
    Have you ever wished you could visit the land of Israel during the time of Abraham, David, or Esther? Wondered how these ancient Israelites talked, walked, thought, and felt? How they communicated their ideas about the world, their god(s), and themselves? Short of borrowing Hermione Granger’s time-turner necklace, learning biblical Hebrew…and I mean really learning Hebrew through the innovative approach of this course…is the next best thing to being there.
    Most courses in biblical Hebrew teach you about the language. Students in these courses don’t really learn how to read Hebrew; in such courses students “read” a verse in Hebrew but then return to the beginning and translate it into English in order to understand what they have “read.” (Believe me; I’ve taught Hebrew this way before.) In this course you will actually acquire the Hebrew language. That is, through a series of active learning techniques based on meaningful communication, you will internalize Hebrew to the degree that you think in Hebrew and therefore understand Hebrew as you read it, just as you are understanding this sentence in English as you are reading it.
    When you study a language, you also enter another culture’s system of meaning-making. And when you study an ancient language, you engage in a type of time travel. Through learning biblical Hebrew with me this year, you will journey to the distant past and inhabit an ancient Israelite culture, one that bequeathed us the Hebrew Bible—aka the Jewish TaNaK or Christian Old Testament.

  •  What will you learn?
    Acquiring a language involves internalizing vocabulary, rules of grammar, and syntactical structures. In most ancient language courses students usually learn these elements through brute memorization. I have designed this course, however, so that you will acquire these elements naturally, through using the language meaningfully to communicate. As a result, by the end of this course and its spring sequel, Elementary Biblical Hebrew II, you will be able to read simple biblical Hebrew prose with immediate comprehension, in Hebrew, without first translating into English. In addition, you will:
    §  communicate meaningfully in Hebrew via listening, speaking, reading, and writing;
    §  connect Hebrew vocabulary and expressions to various spheres of life in ancient Israel, such as family, food, government, economy, religion, national identity, geography, love, emotions, aesthetics, cosmology;
    §  empathize with ancient Israelites and reflect critically on similarities and differences between their communities and yours;
    §  assess how you yourself best achieve significant learning, which will help you in succeed in this course and continue learning after the course is over.
    Although acquiring biblical Hebrew will be a challenging endeavor, if you participate enthusiastically in class activities, complete diligently the learning activities assigned between classes (i.e., “homework”), and seek help as soon as you need it, I suspect you will be surprised by how quickly your Hebrew skills will develop.

• RELG 2820 | Jerusalem | Jessica Andruss | TTh 9:30am–10:45am | New Cabell 232

  • This course traces the history of Jerusalem with a focus on its significance in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. How have these communities experienced and inhabited Jerusalem? How have they imagined the city and interpreted its meaning? How have Jews, Christians, and Muslims expressed their attachments to this contested space from antiquity to modern times? Our exploration will be rooted in primary texts and informed by historical and cultural context, as well as scholarly approaches to sacred space.

• RELJ 3052 | Responses to the Holocaust | Jennifer Geddes | Th 2pm– 4:30pm

  • This course focuses on a wide range of responses to the Holocaust—historical accounts, survivor testimonies, theological responses, and philosophical works—and consider questions such as: What and how do we learn from Holocaust survivor testimonies? What are the theological and philosophical implications of the Holocaust? After the Holocaust, how have understandings of human nature, religious belief and practice, good and evil, responsibility and ethical action changed? What responses to the Holocaust are possible, important, and/or necessary now?

POLITICS