Representing the Jew

(Cross-listed as ENG 164) Advanced seminar on Jewish representations and self-representations in England and America, and in literature and popular culture. Mass culture and the Jews, anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism, Jewishness and sexuality, Jews and other ethnic groups, assimilation. Readings in critical and theoretical texts. Recommendations: ENG 1/2 REQUIRED or Fulfillment of College Writing Requirement. Recommended that the student already have taken either ENG 20,21,22, or 23. JS 172 Introduction to Jewish Mysticism. (Cross-listed as REL 182 and HEB 172) Overview of the intellectual history of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism. Introduction to mystical ideas and doctrines from Biblical texts to contemporary sources, also within a wider, non-Jewish context. Inherent tensions within the mystical enterprise and the conflict between mysticism and rationalism. Reflects on uses and limits of mysticism in shaping contemporary religious experience.