Research Seminar (395-0-24)
Topic
Jewish Autobiographies
Instructors
Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern
847/467-3399
Harris Hall - Room 317
Meeting Info
University Library 3622: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
Autobiography in general and Jewish autobiography in particular presents an unparalleled opportunity to look at history, historical realities, and historical memories (or fantasies!) through the lens of a private individual. Yet the purpose of the autobiography is to tell a story, not history. The autobiography is a quintessential narrative that combines history and memory, authentic details and borrowed narratives, documentary precision and artistic ambition. Autobiography is a historical narrative bordering on the literary. If so, is it possible to use autobiography in historical research? This course opens up a variety of ways to identify and neutralize the literary layer in autobiography to make it a usable historical source. This course takes the participants through five hundred years of Jewish ego-narratives including the autobiographies of rabbis and mystics, schismatics and philosophers, merchants and writers, dissidents and historians, nationalist politicians, cultural assimilationists, and even converts.
Learning Objectives
1. To enhance critical skills through "slow reading" techniques. 2. To introduce key processes in European and Jewish European history such as acculturation and integration, assimilation and dissimilation, ghettoization, emancipation, and migration through personalized narratives and individual experiences. 2. To introduce methods and ways of dealing with personal bias, ambitions, fantasies, and purposeful omissions in texts that could be used for a deeper, more precise, and highly individualized understanding of history.
Evaluation Method
two 7-10 min in-class presentations, three 2-page analytical papers, 15 page final take-home research paper.
Class Notes
Concentration: European
Class Attributes
Advanced Expression
Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Historical Studies Distro Area
No Freshmen
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Freshmen may not register for this course.