Harvard University homepage
HARVARD.EDU

COMPLIT 224 / HDS 1654 /JEWISHST 224 – Jew Theory

Fall views of Autumn foliage and ivy framing a window and a lion statue in the courtyard of The Center for European Studies

COMPLIT 224 / HDS 1654 /JEWISHST 224 – Jew Theory

Semester: Fall
Offered: 2022
Instructor: Saul Zaritt
Meeting Time: Th 9:00am-11:45am

This seminar will discuss the possibility of “Jew theory” as a method for theorizing modernity. The course begins with an examination of how the figure of the Jew, as symbol and stereotype, enters the work of important thinkers of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century—from Marx to Slezkine, from Rosenzweig and Benjamin to Arendt and Derrida. We then shift to the history of Jewish studies in the academy and how many of these same figurations recur in the construction of this field/discipline/association. We will also explore the potential of new modes of “Jewish cultural studies” emerging over the last decades.

Offered jointly with: Faculty of Arts & Sciences as JEWISHST 224, Harvard Divinity School as HDS 1654

For more details please visit the Harvard Course Catalog.