Overview

Faculty

Program Committee:

Heidi M. Ravven, Director
Nadya Bair
Marianne Janack

Department/Program Goals

The goal of the Jewish Studies Program is to provide students with a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and diverse exploration of Jewish civilization over its 3000-year history. The program includes courses across multiple disciplines (the Arts, Humanities, Interdisciplinary Programs, and Social Sciences) and regions of the world (from the Middle East and within the Islamicate, to Europe and the Americas, and as far afield as the Far East and South Asia as well as Oceania). Through these offerings, students will gain an understanding of the breadth and depth of Jewish culture and history, including: the ancient roots of Jewish life and thought; the Jewish peoples’ dispersion across lands and continents; and the development of the variety of Jewish cultural and linguistic expressions and worlds.

Department/Program Student Learning Outcomes

Students will learn to understand the breadth and variety of Jewish Culture and history across many cultures, from the Middle East and within the Islamicate, to Europe and the Americas, and as far afield as the Far East and South Asia as well as Oceania.
Students will gain a foundational understanding of the ancient roots and sources of Jewish life and thought, and then of the Jewish people's dispersion across lands and continents, and their later development of a wide variety of cultural and linguistic expressions and worlds.
Students will be able to take courses in a number of cultural expressions, including but not confined to Jewish literature and history, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, government, religion, and psychology.
Students will have opportunities to pursue both breadth and depth by working with faculty on research projects as well as taking a variety of courses. They will become familiar with multiple methods and disciplines that address a wide variety of aspects of Jewish thought and history.

Concentration/Minor Description and Requirements

The Minor in Jewish Studies consists of five courses, and must include one course each in Pre-Modern and Modern Jewish Life, Thought, History and Culture, and three elective courses, one of which must be at the 300-level or above. Elective courses may be chosen from those in Hebrew language and any of the courses listed below. A maximum of one Hebrew language course (HEBRW-108) may count as an elective toward the minor.

No courses taken CR/NC may be counted for the minor.

The requirement for a Pre-Modern Jewish Life, Thought, History, and Culture course may be fulfilled by:

RELST-111 Ancient Jewish Wisdom
RELST-203 Religion and Politics in the Hebrew Bible
HIST-132 Jewish Civilization from the Talmud to the Yishuv
PHIL-281/RELST-281 Philosophy as Spiritual Quest

The requirement for a course in Modern Jewish Life, Thought, History, and Culture may be fulfilled by:

RELST-132/RELST-332 Holocaust Literature and Film
RELST-204 Know Thyself: Spinoza’s Ethics
ARTH/CNMS/HIST-237 Visual Culture of World War II
GOVT-259/RELST-259 Politics and Religion in Spinoza

Electives may be chosen from among:

ARTH-324 Visual Culture and the Jewish Experience
HEBRW-107 First Term Hebrew
HEBRW-108 Second Term Hebrew
HIST-275 Modern Middle Eastern History
GOVT-207 Politics in the Middle East and North Africa
GOVT-303 Syrian Politics
GOVT-315 Foreign Policies of Middle Eastern States
GOVT-317 Arab Spring and its Aftermath
GOVT-345 Religion and Terrorism
RELST-244/HIST-244 Religious Conflicts
RELST-317 Jesus and the Gospels