ELEMENTARY HEBREW

Introduction to classical grammar, syntax and modern speech patterns. Prerequisite: JUST/HEBR 1001 or equivalent.

INTERMEDIATE HEBREW

Advanced studies in Hebrew reading, grammar, and conversation. Prerequisite: JUST/HEBR 2001 or equivalent.

JEWISH PHILOSOPHY

What is the goal of a human life? What is God and how does He fit into that story? What is the nature of self? Of faith? Of revelation? Of ethics? In this course we set out to answer these important human questions by engaging multiple Jewish philosophical voices across the ages. For our journey we will turn to a host of primary materials (in translation), looking at the works of Philo, Saadya, Halevi, Maimonides, Soloveitchik, Buber, Rosenzweig, and Levinas.

THE MODERN JEWISH REVOLUTION, Professor David Shneer, Core 2618:

We will begin the course with the American Jewish Identity Study (2001) to look at how radically transformed Jewish identity became over the last century. In the past century, Jews radically integrated into surrounding cultures and societies in ways they had never been integrated before and developed ways of identifying as Jews inconceivable one hundred years earlier. In this course, we will study how Jews went from a group marked as other to one radically integrated into and in fact leading and shaping surrounding cultures. We will see how Jews and others responded to this radical integration through violence, cultural transformation, assimilation, or other cultural strategies.

HOLOCAUST LITERATURE

Using novels, short stories, poems, plays, photographs, and films, students will explore the literary, psychological, historical, and religious ramifications of Holocaust experiences. Students will also have an opportunity to engage with the Holocaust Awareness Institute at the University of Denver. All readings will be in translation. Students will seek awareness of the Holocaust and discuss what constitutes “Holocaust literature.” Students will consider issues of representation, expression, and literary and cinematic technique. The texts depict events and reactions that lead up to the Holocaust, that take place during the Holocaust, and that result from the Holocaust; these events may be graphic, disturbing, and perhaps quite upsetting. This course will provide students with tools with which to assess these texts, through which to exercise “critical consciousness,” and with which to participate in the sphere of literary criticism.

MODERN JEWISH LITERATURE

Stories, novels and memoirs by 20th century Jewish writers; consideration of issues of generation, gender and idea of Jewish literature as a genre.