Courses

Undergraduate Courses

Fall 2025
Anti-Judaism: A History (HA)
Subject associations
HIS 447 / JDS 447

This course will examine the history of anti-Judaism from antiquity to the present as an enduring and protean prejudice. It will examine how a series of thinkers - some famous, some less so, some recent, some ancient, some Jews and some not - have used Judaism as a category against which to construct their own ideas. The course will begin in antiquity, in the worlds of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, continue through early and later Christianity, and conclude in the modern period. It will examine both the fundamental distinction between anti-Judaism and antisemitism as well as the considerable overlaps.

Instructors
Yaacob Dweck
Fall 2025
German Intellectual History: Modern Times: Temporalities of Our Age (CD or LA)
Subject associations
GER 306 / ECS 313

Time is notoriously difficult to conceptualize. This course explores recent approaches to understanding time that go beyond simplistic models of cause-and-effect or linear progress. Together we will examine philosophies and theories of temporality, along with their undergirding cultural-political debates and artistic projects. From micro-time and deep time to mythic time and con-temporaneity, we will investigate experiences of continuity, rupture, and crisis. Themes will include utopian imaginaries, nostalgia, and uncanny returns; objects of study will encompass film, art, landscape, literature, ethnography, and scientific instruments.

Instructors
Devin A. Fore
Marie-Louise James
Fall 2025
Marriage and Monotheism: Men, Women, and God in Near Eastern Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (EM)
Subject associations
NES 379 / JDS 378 / GSS 380 / REL 376

The decline of marriage in recent decades is often tied to the decline of religion. But why should marriage, a contractual relationship centered on sex and property, be seen as a religious practice? This seminar considers the varied and surprising ways in which the great monotheistic traditions of the Near East came to connect certain forms of human marriage - or their rejection- to divine devotion, and considers how marriage worked in societies shaped by these traditions. Spanning biblical Israel to the medieval Islamic world, this course will introduce you to the historical study of Near Eastern religions and to the field of family history.

Instructors
Eve Krakowski
Fall 2025
Problems in Near Eastern Jewish History: Jewish and Islamic Law
Subject associations
NES 545 / MED 545 / REL 548 / JDS 545

An introduction to medieval Near Eastern legal cultures that focuses on the intertwined development of Jewish and Islamic law from late antiquity until the twelfth century. We consider both legal writings such as codes and responsa and evidence for practices in state and communal courts. Geared both to students interested in legal history and to students interested in using legal texts and documents for general historical research.

Instructors
Eve Krakowski
Fall 2025
The World of the Cairo Geniza (HA)
Subject associations
NES 369 / HIS 251 / JDS 351 / CDH 369

The Cairo Geniza is a cache of texts from an Egyptian synagogue including letters, lists and legal deeds from before 1500, when most Jews lived in the Islamic world. These are some of the best-documented people in pre-modern history and among the most mobile, crossing the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean to trade, study, apprentice and marry. Data science, neural network-based handwritten text recognition and other computational methods are now helping make sense of the texts on a large scale. Students will contribute to an evolving state of knowledge and gain an insider's view of what we can and can't know in premodern history.

Instructors
Marina Rustow
Fall 2025
Topics in Palestine and Israel Studies: Religion and Nationalism
Subject associations
NES 544 / JDS 544

Palestine and Israel Studies is/are among the most deeply contentious fields of research within Middle Eastern Studies, corresponding to the polarized politics that the field studies. In this course, we choose a topic at the heart of these fields and study the scholarship about it and analyze the relevant primary sources.

Instructors
Jonathan M. Gribetz
Fall 2025
Who Wrote the Bible (HA)
Subject associations
REL 230 / JDS 230

This course introduces the Hebrew Bible (Christian "Old Testament"), a complex anthology written by many people over nearly a thousand years. In this class, we will ask questions about the Hebrew Bible's historical context and ancient meaning, as well as its literary profile and early reception. Who wrote the Bible? When and how was it written? What sources did its authors draw on to write these stories? And to what circumstances were they responding? Students will develop the skills to critically analyze written sources, and to understand, contextualize, and critique the assumptions inherent in modern treatments of the Bible.

Instructors
Liane M. Feldman
Fall 2025
Zionism: Jewish Nationalism Before and Since Statehood (EM or HA)
Subject associations
NES 373 / JDS 373 / HIS 363

Are the Jews a separate nation? Should they have their own country? Where should it be located? This course investigates why Jews and non-Jews alike began asking these questions in the late eighteenth century and explores the varieties of answers they offered. The course's focus is on those who insisted that the Jews were a nation that required a state in the Jews' historic homeland. We will try to understand why these people - known collectively as Zionists - came to these conclusions, and why many others disagreed. The final part of the course will address debates within the State of Israel about what it means to be a "Jewish state."

Instructors
Jonathan M. Gribetz