Jewish History II: Early Modern, 1492-1789 (203-2-1)

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

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-435: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

In 1492, the Spanish Catholic Kings issued a decree banishing the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula allowing converts to stay. Three hundred years later, the French Revolutionary Parliament accepted Jews as legal citizens ushering in the era of Jewish emancipation. This course explores three centuries of radical changes that triggered the rise of new political and religious treatment of and attitude toward Jews. Students will focus on the early modern era of mercantilism that reshaped the Jewish community economically and culturally; on the legalization of the process of readmission of Jews to urban centers from which they were expelled in medieval times; on the spread of Jewish mysticism and the rise of Jewish religious revivalist movements; on the impact of French Enlightenment on the rise of modern Jewish thought; the formation of Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jewish identity; and on the revolutionary upheavals in Netherlands, Britain, and France that triggered the process of emancipation that bolstered Jewish integration into the fabric of European society. Students will look at the early modern European history through the eyes of the previously alienated minority, the attitude to which started to change.

Learning Objectives

• Acquire knowledge of Jews in Western and Central European and Mediterranean region in the late 15th—late 18th century from the political, religious, intellectual, economic, cultural and social vantage points and considering them in their specific local urban (e.g., Venice, Amsterdam, Istanbul) and regional contexts (e.g., Habsburg Empire) emphasizing specificity of their development and their embeddedness in a broader culture, very much characteristic of the Jewish-Muslim-Christian relations in early modernity, through the in-depth study of a plethora of primary sources (contemporary documents) and by challenging the received wisdom of the secondary sources (modern day historiography). • Develop critical skills including the framing of questions, delving into documentary analysis, and mastering contextualization; become acquainted with persuasive scholarly debates, amassing and evaluating historical evidence, and creating historical hypothesis to explain complex phenomena that did not produce abundant pool of sources. • Appreciate the broad and usually unforeseen impact of apparently minor and local historical developments (such as Jewish de facto readmissions to European countries); acquire historical perspective on the present-day historiographic views shaped by methodological debates; consider agency and subjectivity of ordinary Jews, especially women, most of whom walk through history without leaving a trace - and discuss ways to bring them alive through a historical reconstruction; introduce "Jewish history" and "Jewish memory" as one of the effective tools to disassociate empiric reality from its subsequent perception. • Effectively express the students' historical research in written (response papers and a final paper), oral (class discussion, discussion groups) and visual forms (power-points, short in-class intervention on the basis of visualized sources), engage in an intelligent well-balanced debate with creators of modern historical narratives, and analyze hidden and explicit agendas, rhetorical tools, and audience of the historical documents of the past.

Evaluation Method

Students' grades will be based on three 2-page long response papers (critical reviews of the assigned readings, 30 percent), active class participation (30 percent) and a final research paper or review essay based on a topic discussed with and approved by the instructor or TA (11 pages plus bibliography, 40 percent)

Class Attributes

Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Global Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Pre-Reg: Reserved for Jewish Studies major and minors and Hebrew minors