First-Year Seminar: Jewish Spain: History and Culture Across the Hispanic World

This seminar explores the history and culture of medieval Spanish Jewry and how modern Hispanic societies have reimagined this past. We will interrogate how a fascination with Sephardic Jews overlaps with a variety of topics: national identity, anti-Semitism, liberal democracy, colonialism, exile, Holocaust memory, among others. We will think about the relevance of Jewish Spain to our present by working with a diverse group of cultural products from Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Cuba.