| source Harvard (X) |
level |
department Jewish Studies (X) |
Examines the work of philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and the method of deconstruction. Focuses on Derrida's writings that touch on questions of identity, as developed in his prolific career.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
Weekly readings of Jewish writings about the self as they appear in a variety of literary genres, alongside recent scholarly literature on "Ego-documents" and Jewish autobiography.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
A close examination of the books of Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah 1-39, in their historical and social contexts.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
Topic for 2008-09: Boundaries and Identities. Readings of Jewish texts, ancient to modern, that deal with the question of the Other and the Self: what is the boundary between Jews and non-Jews, and between Judaism and non-Judaism?
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
Focus on close readings of selected pre-Enlightenment Jewish historical writings, with consideration of relevant theoretical and methodological frameworks. Readings will be available in the original Hebrew and Yiddish and in English translations.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
A critical introduction to the first five books of the Jewish and Christian Bible - the Pentateuch or Torah - with attention to essential literary, thematic, historical, and theological features, and with a view toward the continuing interpretive afterlife of these texts in Judaism and Christianity.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
Exploration of a thousand years of Jewish culture, from the earliest settlements in Germany and Poland to the present. Examination of its geographical, intellectual, and artistic breadth through the history of the Yiddish language, selections of Yiddish literature, the press, film, theater, and klezmer music. Analysis of Jewish mysticism and superstitions; food and dress; rituals and beliefs; gender, family, and sexuality. Particular attention given to the relevance of Yiddish culture today and its influence on the arts and politics in the U.S., Israel, Eastern Europe, and around the world.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
The advent of print, the Protestant challenge to the Roman Catholic church, increasing use of the written vernacular, a blossoming of interest in different and exotic peoples-these and additional developments transformed Europe in the period from about 1500 to 1750. This course uses written and graphic primary sources to examine the place of these developments in Jewish society and culture, in the context of the history and historiography of Christian Europe.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
An examination of Jewish-Arab cultural exchange against its socio-political backdrop, from the pre-Islamic period through the thirteenth century. Topics include: perceptions of the other; social relations; polemics; conversions; interchange in the realms of religion, law, literature, philosophy and mysticism; the end of the classical age. These topics will be explored through primary sources in translation.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
An examination of the book of Job and its poetic treatment of the human condition. The course will also consider other biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts that deal with the issue of evil in the world from a religious perspective, and later readings and retellings of Job by Frost, MacLeish, Wiesel, Fackenheim, and others.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
A study of significant Jewish thinkers in the modern period and their reflections on the past and present meaning of Judaism. All thinkers studied against the background of premodern Jewish thought and the challenges posed by modern Western philosophical systems.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
Introduction to Yiddish poetry 1890s-1970s, tracing its trends and movements through close study of major works in various genres-lyric, dramatic, narrative, epic. Includes poems written in Europe, America, and Israel. Uses bilingual editions with transliteration and voice recordings to examine issues and theories of translation.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
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Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
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Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
A study of the exegetical literature of so-called rewritten Bible texts from the Second Temple period, considered in relation to the received Hebrew Bible and its later interpretive traditions. Examination of exegetical techniques, aims, and presuppositions, with attention to higher level compositional strategies, underlying conceptions of scripture/scriptural authority, and the dynamics of canon formation. Primary sources will include, among others: the book of Jubilees, the Temple Scroll, Reworked Pentateuch, the Genesis Apocryphon, as well as selected prophetic and hymnic exemplars.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
A study of the emergence of Jewish law in antiquity. Theme for 2009: The development of Sabbath law from the Bible to the Mishnah.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
Studies the emergence of the Yiddish novel as a major literary form in Russia, Poland, and the US. Begins with the pioneer of modern Yiddish and Hebrew prose, Mendele Mocher Sforim, includes Sholem Aleichem, Sholem Asch, David Bergelson, Der Nister, and the family Singer: Israel Joshua, Isaac Bashevis, and Esther Kreitman. Highly compressed development of the genre reflects great artistic, ideological, and thematic variety.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page
This course explores the diverse functions of scripture within the literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls, focusing in particular on the forms and methods of interpretation attested, considered in light of other varieties of interpretation in early Judaism. Sessions will be devoted to reading, translation and discussion of primary sources in Hebrew, as well as to discussion of relevant secondary literature.
Score: 10.027651 Details | Listing | Web page