RADICAL JEWISH CULTURES

Credit Hours: 3 · Undergraduate Lower-Level

In 1990s New York City, a group of musician-improvisers began to describe their artistic practice under the title of “Radical Jewish Culture.” The term raised a slew of interrelated questions: What makes culture Jewish? What makes Jewish culture radical? What are some of the aesthetic characteristics of alternative Jewish artistic practices? What social questions related to Jewish life are entangled within these practices? In what ways does alternative Jewish art expand the conversation on relevant social questions and vice versa? This course explores this core set of questions among a range of Radical Jewish Cultures across media and around the world throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Moving through Europe, the U.S., Latin America, North Africa, and Israel/Palestine, we will read, listen to, and view Jewish literature, music, theatre, dance, and film that sit outside the mainstream.