Research Seminar (395-0-20)

Topic

Jewish Autobiography as a Historical Source

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

University Hall 218: Mon, Wed 3:30PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

Autobiography, and Jewish autobiography in particular, presents a fascinating, in most cases unparalleled opportunity to look at history and historical realities through the lens of a private individual. Yet the purpose of the autobiography is to tell the story, not history. The autobiography is a quintessential narrative that borders on the literary. If so, is it possible to use autobiography in historical research? This course opens up a variety of ways to neutralize the literary ingredient in autobiography to make it a usable historical source. This course takes the participants through five hundred years of Jewish personal narratives including the autobiographies of rabbis and mystics, schismatics and philosophers, merchants and writers, dissidents and historians, politicians, and even converts.

Registration Requirements

prerequisites: any European history course//any course in Jewish Studies

Learning Objectives

prepare students to conduct independent research and produce a research paper based on their own analysis, contextualization, and critical perception of primary sources.

Evaluation Method

group and individual presentations, primary-sources) based final research paper

Class Notes

History Major Concentration(s): Europe
History Minor Concentration(s): Middle East

Class Attributes

Advanced Expression
Historical Studies Foundational Discipline

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Freshmen may not register for this course.