This course exposes students to major approaches to the interdisciplinary field of Jewish Studies. We will focus our attention, in sequence, on different objects of analysis: Jews, Jewish languages, Jewish texts, Jewish politics, and Jewish cultural expression. In each case, we will ask what it means to call that kind of object (a person, word, political idea, work of culture, etc.) Jewish, and we will examine some of the most influential answers that have been presented, from antiquity to modernity. By the end of the semester, students will have a solid grounding in the field as a whole and a roadmap for pursuing the study of Jews, Judaism, and Jewish culture at Wellesley (and beyond).

Hindu thinkers in all historical periods have interpreted the classics of Hindu spirituality and ethics within the tradition for their own times. Do these texts have contemporary relevance? Do they offer spiritual inspiration for individuals and ethical norms for a healthy society for our times? How have these been interpreted by modern thinkers? We will examine a few major Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita from ancient times, and the lives and lyrics of saintly poets from pre-modern times as primary texts as well as their modern interpretations. We will also look at uses and abuses of the texts in social and political arenas. Most of these texts are structured in a question-answer format, reflecting the spirit of questioning and dialog prevalent in the contexts of their composition. Our examination will follow suit.

There is a deep crisis of values at the heart of contemporary culture in the United States. On one hand, the nation is unquestionably committed to the principle of radical individualism, marked especially by free-market capitalism, consumerism, and increasingly violent libertarian politics. On the other hand, increasing competition and diversity require principles of the common good to sustain the cultural coherence, social media, and environmental stability necessary for civil society to function effectively. This course will investigate the conflict between these two sets of values through theoretical readings and the inspection of public life in the United States in the twenty-first century. It asks whether there ought to be any constraints on individualism that can be justified by an appeal to the common good and, if so, what those constraints should be.

An exploration of the contacts and interactions among the major religious communities of Eurasia especially as facilitated by trade, travel and pilgrimage along the 'Silk Road'. After initial consideration of the idea of the 'Silk Road' and the history of its 'discovery', the course focuses on commerce and contacts in specific historical periods from antiquity to the present. Readings include sacred texts (including Buddhist, Hindu, Confucian, Daoist, Islamic and Zoroastrian texts), as well as merchants', travellers' and pilgrims' accounts. The course includes substantial attention to the material cultures and artistic works produced by the religious communities of the Silk Road.

Why do people build monuments? How do they help and whom do they hurt? This seminar introduces approaches and case studies related to sacred monuments, monumentality, and memory from the ancient Mediterranean to the Confederate South. We will review current research in biblical studies, classics, archaeology, and sociology with a focus on physical monuments in the Bible, and in the ancient Near East, Greco-Roman antiquity, and up through the present. Case studies include historical monuments and artifacts such as the Law of Hammurabi, Confederate monuments, and obelisks of Mussolini; literary descriptions of artifacts including the Ten Commandments, cultic statues, and the Dead Sea Scrolls; and monument desecration and destruction including Roman condemnations of memory and #BlackLivesMatter protests. Possible trips to the MFA, and Harvard Art and Semitic Museums.

An introduction to the major religions of India, Tibet, China, and Japan with particular attention to universal questions such as how to overcome the human predicament, how to perceive ultimate reality, and what is the meaning of death and the end of the world. Materials taken from Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Shinto. Comparisons made, when appropriate, with Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.

A study of the Christian religion through eleven objects that represent key beliefs, rituals, institutions, and spiritualities of the tradition: a cross, flame, water, bread and wine, a crown, an icon, a monastery, a cathedral, printed bibles and hymnals, a meetinghouse, and a megachurch. We will take one week of the term to examine each of these objects and their complex meanings in Christian culture. Our approach will feature historical and thematic perspectives and engage with a combination of primary source texts, secondary interpretive readings, visual images, sound recordings, and videos. No previous knowledge of Christianity is assumed.

Mystifying and complex, the figure of courtesan has appeared as the foil to the virtuous and docile wife in Sanskrit and Tamil classics of ancient India, early Urdu novels, and literary works of several South Asian languages. Since the mid-twentieth century, the courtesan has appeared in films produced in South Asia as a self-sacrificing character with a strong will. In this course, we will examine literary works in South Asian languages since the antiquity with courtesans as central characters and films based on them. For each work, we will first consider the figure of the courtesan in view of the cultural context of the time of its composition and various theories of literary criticism. We will then analyze the film based on the work in terms of how the interpretation of the character here compares with the literary work.

Love in its myriad manifestations constitutes a central and perennial theme in the literary and artistic repertoires of Arabic- and Persian-speaking societies. This course explores the varied, subtle vocabulary and the versatile, multivalent imagery linked with the themes of love and longing in Arabic- and Persian-language literature and film. In different times and places, how have men and women writers and directors used the themes of love and longing to depict and critique concepts of gender and gender relations, and social and political inequalities? How have men and women writers and filmmakers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries both continued and disrupted earlier literary and poetic discourses of love? How have modern filmmakers engaged with and reworked classical stories of transgressive love? Divided roughly equally between literary and cinematic works, the course explores treatments of love and longing in, for example, early Arabic poetry and the Quranic text, philosophical and medical treatises, narrative cycles (for example the Thousand and One Nights), epic (notably the Persian Shahnameh or ‘Book of Kings’), lyric poetry (Rumi, Saadi, Hafez), modern verse, and film, including films by Dariush Mehrjui, Youssef Chahine, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abbas Kiarostami, Rakhshan Bani-Etamad and Shirin Neshat.

Love in its myriad manifestations constitutes a central and perennial theme in the literary and artistic repertoires of Arabic- and Persian-speaking societies. This course explores the varied, subtle vocabulary and the versatile, multivalent imagery linked with the themes of love and longing in Arabic- and Persian-language literature and film. In different times and places, how have men and women writers and directors used the themes of love and longing to depict and critique concepts of gender and gender relations, and social and political inequalities? How have men and women writers and filmmakers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries both continued and disrupted earlier literary and poetic discourses of love? How have modern filmmakers engaged with and reworked classical stories of transgressive love? Divided roughly equally between literary and cinematic works, the course explores treatments of love and longing in, for example, early Arabic poetry and the Quranic text, philosophical and medical treatises, narrative cycles (for example the Thousand and One Nights), epic (notably the Persian Shahnameh or ‘Book of Kings’), lyric poetry (Rumi, Saadi, Hafez), modern verse, and film, including films by Dariush Mehrjui, Youssef Chahine, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abbas Kiarostami, Rakhshan Bani-Etamad and Shirin Neshat.