Winter Term 2023 Courses

JST 311 / HST 311 Introduction to New Testament  
INSTRUCTOR: Professor Loren Spielman
MODE: Face to Face
Tue./Thu. 10:00am - 11:50am
LOCATION: CH 328 (Cramer Hall) - Room change 1/4/2023
CRN: 44778 / 44436

Come learn what modern scholarship has to say about the contents, contexts and composition of the New Testament. This course focuses on what the earliest Christian writings reveal about the origins of Christianity, its early history and the varieties of its practice and belief. Special attention will be paid to identifying different perspectives on the life and role of Jesus, the relationship between faith and law, and the nature of divine salvation within (and to some extent outside of) the New Testament canon.

JST/HST 317U Jewish History I From Antiquity to the Middle Ages ​
INSTRUCTOR: Professor Loren Spielman
MODE: Hybrid
Thu. 2:00pm - 3:50pm
LOCATION: FMH B104 (Fariborz Maseeh Hall) - Room change 1/4/2023
CRN: 44432 / 44437

When does the history of the Jews begin? How reliable is the Bible as a source for Jewish origins?  What was life like for Jews living under Greek and Roman rule, during the time of Jesus, or under the first Christian and Muslim empires?  This course will answer all these questions, covering the Jewish historical experience from its Biblical origins (circa 1000 BCE) through the end of the first millennium (1000 CE). We will examine diverse forms of Jewish life during antiquity and examine the boundaries of pre-modern Jewish cultural and religious identity. Special attention will also be paid to ancient Jewish literature, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Talmud. This class is the first in a two semester introduction to the study of Jewish history, religion and culture (no prerequisites are required).

Fulfills a requirement for the Medieval Studies minor. 

University studies cluster:  Interpreting the Past

HST 371 Queerness and Difference in European History
Instructor: Professor Natan Meir
MODE: Face to Face 
Tue./Thu. 12:00pm - 1:50pm
LOCATION: PNT 208 (University Pointe) - Room change 12/19/2023
CRN: 44442

Many of us are aware of the significance of intersectionality in our own day and age, but what might it have meant in medieval Spain or 19th-century Russia? How did queer identities intersect and interact with other categories of belonging? In this course, which spans the Middle Ages to the 20th century, we will examine the history of same-sex desire and the identities of gender-nonconforming people in Europe through the lens of religious, ethnic, national, and racial difference. Topics include queerness and medieval religious difference, perceptions of queerness in the disabled body and the Jewish body, and fascism’s merging of social groups perceived as subhuman or degenerate, including Jews, Roma, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ people.

Attention WGSS majors/minors: this course can count towards WGSS elective credit. Contact the instructor for more information.

JST/HST 379U History of Zionism 
INSTRUCTOR: Nina Spiegel
MODE: Online Scheduled (with asynchronous components)
Thu. 12:00pm - 1:50pm
CRN: 44433 / 44443

Nationalism is very much in the news. But what is a nation? And what is the Jewish nation? This course will explore the ideas and visions that shaped the modern Israeli state. We will investigate the Zionist movement in Europe in the 19th century, the variety and diversity of Zionist visions, and the movement’s growth in Palestine from the late 19th century up until the formation of the state of Israel. The course examines the roots of the Arab-Jewish conflict and the society and culture the Zionist movement created in Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine. The class includes a variety of sources, including film, photography, literature, memoirs, political philosophy, and historiography. 

University Studies cluster: Global Perspectives.

FILM 384U Divorce in American Film
INSTRUCTOR: Professor Michael Weingrad
MODE: Face to Face
Mon./ Wed. 4:00pm - 5:50pm
LOCATION: LH 331 (Lincoln Hall)
CRN: 41274

Divorce has been an important subject in American film from the Silent Era to the present, reflecting shifting attitudes toward courtship and marriage, gender and class, liberty and responsibility. Looking at the production, reception, and literary sources of over a dozen American films, we will consider divorce as comedy, as tragedy, and as gauge of American anxieties and aspirations. Particular topics will include the “comedy of remarriage” in films of the 1930s and 40s, divorce and American Jews, the impact of the 1960s counterculture, and how and when the concern for children is treated. Films include The Divorcee (1930), Dodsworth (1936), The Women (1939), Palm Beach Story (1942), Petulia (1968), The Heartbreak Kid (1972), Blume in Love (1973), Hester Street (1975), An Unmarried Woman (1978), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), The Squid and the Whale (2005), and Marriage Story (2019). Readings include Henry James, What Maisie Knew; C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves; and Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, Company.

Fulfills University Studies cluster requirements: American Identities and Examining Popular Culture

This course fulfills the BA Fine and Performing Arts requirement
 

FILM course fees:  Students and auditors taking any film course will be charged a $45.00 fee.  This is a fee that the Film department applies to all of their courses.