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What binds Jews throughout their history is both a set of shared practices and narratives and an attachment to the land called Palestine or Israel. And yet more Jews by far have lived outside that land than in it. Every
Jewish community has been set in a particular landscape and has lived among its own particular neighbors. In fact, an identity shared across thousands of miles and thousands of years can only be understood through close
attention
to the very different political, cultural and economic situations shaping the lives of those who have shared that identity.
This course will thus present an introduction to the broad sweep of Jewish experience
through
examinations of the ways history and geography intersect in Jewish life. We will look at both continuities and differences in the lives of Jewish communities through the centuries and around Europe and the Mediterranean
world. Course materials will include period memoirs; especially insightful accounts by recent historians; critical essays on Jewish historiography; and a collection of primary materials for the modern
period.
Histories
of Jewish Diaspora has three main goals:
1. To show that Jewish studies is anything but parochial. Instead, the ways Jews have been like and different from their neighbors can serve as a vital connecting thread,
providing
a fresh perspective on the question of the West and its culture;
2. To prepare students to understand better the transformations of Jewish life in modernity by studying the tension between cultural and political
self-governance
of traditional Jewish communities and their participation in broader social life;
3. To provide starting points for further specialized reading and research in Jewish thought, history and culture.
COURSE FORMAT: Discussion
Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS RELI Grading Mode: Graded
Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.
Last Updated on MAR-30-2006
Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459