Topics in History (492-0-22)

Topic

Documents and Narratives: Jews and Modernity

Instructors

Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern
847/467-3399
Harris Hall - Room 317
YPS is the Crown Family Professor in Jewish Studies at History Department. He edited eight and authored seven books, four of them award-winning. He taught as a visiting professor at various universities in Israel, Russia, Poland, Germany, Ukraine, and USA. Currently he is finishing a book-length project "Fantasis: A History of Modern Laughter."

Meeting Info

Harris Hall room 101: Tues 9:00AM - 12:00PM

Overview of class

This is a course specially designed for the graduate students and graduate students in the Humanities, particularly in History, Philosophy, Anthropology, and Religious Studies, to introduce them to the field of Jewish studies, methods, historical narratives and a plethora of primary sources (in translation). Using chronicles, legal texts, literary works, mystical and liturgical writings, epistles, autobiographies, and scientific and philosophical treatises, as well as material, visual, and artistic texts this course focuses on Jews in urban centers in Europe and Ottoman Empire between the 1450s and the 1780s. The course trains students to identify, explore, question, compare, and integrate primary sources of different genre within a broader picture of Jewish political, social, economic, religious, and cultural endeavors. Students will explore and analyze some of the major scholarly debates of contemporary Jewish historical writing, including the relationships between Jews and mercantile elites in early modern Europe; the rise of print and its role in intellectual exchange; clerical, political, and popular anti-Judaism; Jews' economic and political roles in Christian and Islamic territories; the relationship of Jewish history and Jewish memory; and the role of millenarianism and messianic religious movements in shaping shared cultural spaces of Jews and Christians.

Registration Requirements

Graduate students only.

Learning Objectives

Help grad students navigate early modern period in Jewish history (ca. 1450-ca. 1790) by integrating Jewish socio-cultural, intellectual, religious, theological, gender, artistic developments within broader trends in European and Middle Eastern history and by introducing cutting-edge methodologies in the field of early modern studies.

Evaluation Method

grades will be based on regular oral class discussions and active class participation and a final 16-20-page long analytical paper (either a review essay of historiography or a primary source-based analysis)

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: REASON: Pre-registration is not allowed for this class. Please try again during regular registration. Prerequisite: MA or PhD History student