History of Jewish Life in Europe
Fall & Spring
| 3 credits
| Elective
Majors:
History
and
Religious Studies
This course will focus on Jewish life in Europe from the seventeenth century through the present day to examine the claim that "the modern age became the Jewish age" (Slezkine) and how this transition could only be possible in the context of European history--from the most distint "other" in European societies to the present day construction of Jewish hybrid identities.
We will discuss themes such as the relationship between cultural/ethnic diversity and nationalism, the development of modern anti-Semitism, and the question of minority rights within a majority society. These issues all played a major role in the Jewish experience of re-inventing tradition and constructing hybrid identities by reshuffling and reconfiguring ethnic, religious, national, or cultural affiliations.
This course will examine the crucial role of German Jewry for these European phenomena, but will also include discussions of British, French, and Polish-Russian Jewish experiences. The process of cultural transfer of ideas and practices within European Jewry and the impace of these on developments of the American Diaspora and Israel in the twentieth century will be examined as well.
Instructors
-
Thorsten Wagner
Mag.art. (Modern History and German Literature, Technische Universität Berlin, 1998). Danish Center for Holocaust- and Genocide Studies, 2001-2004. Educator at the Jewish Museum Berlin since 2001. Research fellow and docent at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin since 2007. With DIS since 2010.
