Come learn the language of the Hebrew Bible and of sleepless Tel Aviv nights! One of the oldest languages in the world, for several centuries Hebrew was used only as a literary tool until it was revived as a national Jewish language starting in the late 19th century. Today, Hebrew is the official language of Israel and is studied and spoken by Jews and non-Jews all around the world. Used in everyday life, songs, films, and on the Internet, Hebrew has never been so young!

This course is the direct continuation of HBRW 101 that is taught in the Fall. Emphasis is on further developing reading, writing, comprehension, and speaking skills, with a focus on cultural orientation and the practical use of Hebrew in meaningful everyday situations. During the semester, students will expand the basic language skills acquired in HBRW 101, enhance their understanding of Hebrew grammar constructions (in particular, verbs in the present and past tense, use of direct object and prepositional verbs, common syntactical constructions), and increase their vocabulary. The course will cover the textbook Hebrew from Scratch vol. 1 from Lesson 3 through Lesson 17, and will be supplemented by additional written, audio, and video materials in Hebrew.

Location

Rush Rhees Library Room 442 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

Welcome to your second year of modern Hebrew! By completion of this second semester of Hebrew at the intermediate level, you will further expand speech interaction in free and authentic informal Hebrew in a variety of everyday situations. Your understanding and use of grammar constructions (in particular, of the verb system) will be enhanced and your vocabulary dramatically increased. You will also develop reading skills enabling you to approach texts written in a higher and more formal style than the one used in speaking and be able to effectively use a Hebrew-English-Hebrew dictionary. The course will continue covering the second volume of the textbook Hebrew from Scratch and will be supplemented by additional written, audio, and video materials in Hebrew.

Location

Rush Rhees Library Room 428D (TR 6:15PM - 7:30PM)

This course is an introduction to Jewish religion and culture from ancient to modern times. Designed for students with little or no prior knowledge of Judaism, it will examine the formation, ruptures, and changes of Jewish tradition, identity, and culture beginning with the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible), continuing through Rabbinic interpretations of law and lore, medieval Jewish thought, early modern Jewish mysticism, the Enlightenment and modern Jewish philosophy, up to contemporary American Jewish feminism. Because this course explores a large swath of the history of Judaism, its peoples, and ideas in various geographic contexts, we will continually question the claim that there exists a single, static, essential entity called “Judaism.” Paying close attention to changes in Jewish religious and cultural self-understanding and traditions across primary and secondary texts, we will instead investigate the possibility that there were and are multiple “Judaisms” just as there were and are multiple “Jews” living in different cultural, religious, and geographic settings throughout time.

Location

Rush Rhees Library Room 442 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

Revolutions and Revolt is an experimental course that examines 20th century German cultural history. We will explore questions of social justice, representation, and political expression clustered around three major revolutionary moments: the German Revolution of 1918, the German Student Movement of 1968, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Our course will be oriented by a careful reading of Marx and Engle's Communist Manifesto, that, while also defining the conditions of possibility for an empowered proletarian class, can also be used a tool to reflect on the revolutionary features of language, poetry, and art. We will think about specific genres – the manifesto, the pamphlet, political theater, and film, as genres that calls or could call "revolution" into being. These historical hinge points (a term I am borrowing from Matt Christman) bring various emancipatory impulses into relief, beyond the history of class conflict described in the Communist Manifesto, and we will engage with pacificist, anti-fascist, feminist, and Jewish texts and artworks. This course is conducted in English, and our readings are English translations of German texts, but if students of German would like to work on original texts, these can be provided along with alternative assignments where German language practice might be implemented.

Location

Lattimore Room 401 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

This course invites you to look at and analyze your own dreams, loves, self-doubts, interpersonal conflicts, moral beliefs, and religious practices, and those of people around you, from the perspective of unconscious passions. Drawing on the findings of classical and contemporary psychoanalysts, the course investigates how these thinkers/clinicians explore the unconscious mind and how it influences our beliefs, emotions, and behaviors. We will consider the ways in which these depth psychological theories and modes of self-exploration offer guidance on how to live, what to believe, and how to relate to others.

Location

Lattimore Room 413 (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

This course examines Jewish responses to the Nazi Holocaust. The focus is how Jewish survivors and theologians respond to catastrophic suffering and reinvent Jewish tradition in the process. The central problem is theodicy (the justification of God in relation to suffering) and anti-theodicy (the refusal of religious thinkers to justify or accept the relation between God and suffering). Part 1 explores first- and second-generation survivors’ accounts of the Holocaust with attention to how trauma shapes memory and representation. We then read classical Jewish responses to catastrophic suffering, including Biblical and Rabbinic sources, and compare these to post-Holocaust accounts. Finally, we examine the theological writings of post-Holocaust thinkers and how they reject and reinvent traditional ideas about God, suffering, and Judaism.

Location

Meliora Room 218 (TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)