German Studies 219: Modern Jewish Thought

This course surveys the ways Jews and Jewish thought have navigated the intellectual, political, and spiritual challenges of modernity. From the Alhambra Decree of 1492 which expelled Jews from Christian Spain, to Jewish emancipation in the 19th-century Europe, to the Holocaust in the 20th-century, and finally to the 1948 formation of the state of Israel, modern Jewish experiences constitute an alternative modernity, one that draws from and profoundly challenges European enlightenment universalism. This story of clash and confluence will begin with the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza, the so-called “first modern Jew,” and our investigations will move through pathways of Jewish enlightenment (Moses Mendelssohn) and existentialism, Zionism and the Jewish Question, theological feminisms, and ending with Levinas and Derrida. This course will survey the diverse landscapes of Jewish modernity, with special attention to dynamics between secularism and traditionalism, individualism and nationalism, exile and homeland, and Judaism and Christianity.  Course taught in English. Students electing to take the German Studies section will complete some reading in the original German and may complete some writing, and discussion assignments in German. May be elected as Religion 219.