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Academic Year 2004/2005

Iconoclastic Fictions: Imagination and Idolatry in Recent Jewish American Writing
RELI 482 SP

This course will explore the connection, in self-consciously Jewish contemporary fiction, between the Judaic ban on idolatry and the intersections of ethics, power, and representation. The texts we will read pursue such an exploration in relation to questions of art and ethics, rationalism and faith, mimesis and technological reproduction, celebrity and identity, myth-making and cybernetic capabilities, among others. They all connect the Judaic critique of "idolatry" to the varied Jewish responses to fundamental issues of contemporary Jewish existence, such as the Holocaust, Zionism, and assimilation. They all thereby suggest that "Jewishness," rather than simply an ethnic identity, might provide ways of reading the dominant Enlightenment discourses, and of enhancing some of those discourses' liberating possibilities.

MAJOR READINGS

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

COURSE FORMAT: Seminar

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA RELI    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE

SECTION 01

Instructor(s): Katz,Adam    

Times: ..T.R.. 10:30AM-11:50AM;     Location: RSCSEM;

Reserved Seats:    (Total Limit: 20)

SR. major: 3   Jr. major: 2

SR. non-major: 4   Jr. non-major: 4   SO: 4   FR: 3

Special Attributes:

Curricular Renewal:    Ethical Reasoning, Writing

Last Updated on MAR-21-2005

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