“Jewish Life and Literature” is an introductory level exploration of a major theme or period in Jewish life and literature, explored in an international context. Emphasis on the ways in which Jewish literature or culture has played (and continues to play) a crucial role in the Jewish historical experience, both documenting and influencing Jewish life. Readings and topics vary from semester to semester.

We live in times of extreme uncertainty, but one thing is undeniable: we are living through catastrophe. From the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine to environmental collapse, global pandemic, political upheaval, and the rise of authoritarian regimes, rupture has become a defining feature of our moment. What can Jewish history teach us about the emergence, experience, and consequences of catastrophe? And what is catastrophe to begin with?

This course traces voices of rupture across Jewish thought and literature—from biblical laments and rabbinic midrash to modernist poetics and contemporary prose. Moving between philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis, and literary criticism, we will read foundational texts by figures including Walter Benjamin, Freud, Clarice Lispector, S. Yizhar, and Mahmoud Darwish alongside biblical, rabbinic, medieval, and modern Jewish sources. In so doing, the course also offers an introduction to two millennia of Jewish thought, history, and textual traditions, as well as their ongoing dialogue with neighboring cultures and languages. While telling a story of tragedies, we will also ask ourselves in what other terms, more hopeful perhaps, we could narrate an alternative history of the human experience; and what these other stories could afford us in imagining a peaceful (or at least, less violent) world.

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