This course is designed to engage students in conversations about particular perspectives on the history of a selected nation, region, people, culture, institution, or historical phenomenon as specified by the respective instructor. By taking this course, students will come to understand, and develop an appreciation for, some combination of: the origins and evolution of the people, cultures, and/or political, economic, and/or social institutions of a particular region(s) of the world. They may also explore how human encounters shaped individual and collective identities and the complex political, economic, and social orders of the region/nation/communities under study. Instructors and subject will vary.

This course examines the formation and the development of modern Israel. The course focuses on the historical, social and cultural origins of Zionist ideology, Israel’s founding ideology, as well as on role of the Holocaust; the Arab-Jewish conflict; the Ashkenazi-Mizrahi and secular-religious divide in the development of contemporary Israeli society. Throughout the course students will engage with a variety of primary sources, from historical documents to literary and cinematic works, and a variety of secondary sources. Israel tends to dominate the headlines of media outlets around the world, in this course we will go beyond the headlines and explore from an intellectual and academic perspective the forces and conditions that have shaped the modern Israeli experience. There will be a final paper, rather than a final exam. Instructor Bio: Eran Kaplan is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor in Israel Studies at San Francisco State University. Previously he taught at Princeton, Cincinnati and Toronto. He is the author of several books on Israeli history and culture; the latest, from 2020, is Projecting the Nation: History and Ideology on the Israeli Screen.

Class meetings will take place on Zoom at the times assigned. Students will need to attend lectures at the scheduled class times to succeed in the class. Recordings of class sessions will be posted on bCourses and will remain there for one week.

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Requirements class fulfills