Critical introduction to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, studying its role in the history and culture of ancient Israel and its relationship to ancient Near Eastern cultures. Special focus on the fundamental techniques of literary, historical, and source criticism in modern scholarship, with emphasis on the Bible's literary structure and compositional evolution.

The roles played by Jews in the development of modern American literature are complex and contradictory. Influential American authors expressed anti-Semitic views in their correspondence and work, and prejudice excluded Jews from many literary and cultural opportunities well into the 20th century. Nonetheless Jewish publishers, editors, critics, and writers were extraordinarily influential in the development of the field, founding leading publishing houses, supporting freedom of expression and movements like modernism and postmodernism, and writing some of the most influential and lasting works in the tradition. In this course, we will explore the ways Jews have been represented in American literature and their roles in modernizing and expanding the field. Fulfills the English Department’s Diversity of Literatures in English requirement.

This course will explore the vibrant literary culture of Jewish women writers of Latin America from the 1920s to the present. We will examine selected works by these authors, daughters of immigrants, whose various literary genres reveal the struggle with issues of identity, acculturation, and diasporic imagination. Writers include Alicia Steimberg of Argentina, Clarice Lispector of Brazil, and Margo Glantz of Mexico, as well as a new generation of writers who explore issues of multiculturalism and ethnicity.

Students in JWST 227/SPAN 277 and JWST 377/SPAN 377 will all get the same material, but students taking the 300-level version of the course will have additional assignments, including formal presentations and longer writing and independent work.

This course is taught in Spanish.

Scholars of Jewish Studies tend to focus on moments of hardship and pain. But do disasters and the despair tell the whole story? What gets missed when we prioritize despair and misery and cast aside allegedly lighter and more positive themes? Such questions are the engine that runs this seminar. We will rethink the cultural roles of joy in Judaism, take Jewish humor seriously, and ponder whether happiness in Judaism is distinct from what we find in other religious traditions. Throughout the semester, through careful readings of primary sources (in translation) and contemporary theories, we will explore how so-called positive emotions, moods, and affects are inextricable from the most serious aspects of religion, politics, and the human experience, such as identity formation, violence, gender norms, and power.