Jewish Civilization I: Ancient Beginnings to Medieval Period

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to some transformations (textual, geo-political, social, economic, religious, cultural, and historical) between the first millennium BCE and the middle of the second millennium CE that Jewish communities, and the scholars who study them, draw upon, interpret, investigate, and disagree about, when talking about "Jewish Civilization." Working both chronologically and thematically, it covers a range of primary textual sources-biblical, Talmudic, philosophical, literary, mystical, epistolary, and others-to better understand the histories of Jewish communities as constituted through mutually influencing exchanges with, and attempts at differentiation from, neighboring, dominant populations, as well as contestation about the possible trajectories of Jewish life internal to Jewish communities. It will also address questions of method and genre in the study of Judaism-namely, what sorts of artifacts can be or should be called upon to study a "civilization," how such artifacts should be approached, and whose authority shapes (and ought to shape) such decisions.