Near East Studies

In this course, students examine the development of Jewish life across Europe. Topics include emancipation and integration; Jewish life in the Russian empire and in Eastern Europe; the emergence of different forms of Judaism; antisemitism; mass migration; and radical politics, gender issues, and varieties of Jewish national politics.

This course is an introduction to the political, economic, social and cultural history of the Middle East from 1950 to the present. It covers the coming to independence of nation-states in the region after the Second World War and examines the subsequent domestic and regional conflicts, ranging from nationalism, statism and socialism to Islamism and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

This course focuses on the meaning of "peace" as a classical Jewish value demonstrating the significant differences between it and the modern Western secular model. The course starts with an analysis of the politics of peace in western philosophy, tracing this discourse from the work of Kant to that of contemporary post-critical political philosophers. Students trace similarities between contemporary critiques of Kant and the alternative strategies for peace-making offered in the Jewish tradition. The course studies the meaning of peace in both classical and modern Jewish literature, examining the connection between peace and Messianism and exploring the implications of this connection for Zionist and religious Zionist political thought. Finally, the course examines the different ways in which alternative articulations of peace might suggest entirely new approaches to the challenge of accomplishing peace in today's Middle East after a fashion that enables us to tackle such loaded questions as the sanctity of the holy land, the Temple Mount, etc. This course requires students have completed one course in Jewish Studies, Political Philosophy, Middle East Studies, or International Relations as a prerequisite.

This course provides basic reading knowledge of Middle Egyptian and its hieroglyphic script. After coverage of the basics in the first few weeks, most of the course is devoted to reading and understanding "set texts," which students prepare in advance of each session. The set texts, which form the basis of the exam, includes the Story of the SHIPWRECKED SAILOR ("Papyrus Leningrad") and extracts from funerary stelae and other works in Middle Egyptian - among these, the Story of Sinuhe.

This course examines how Jewish and Israeli art, architecture, and material culture have been both a reflection and creator of identity. It includes field trips to A Studio of Her Own (a women’s art center in Jerusalem) and the Umm El-Fahem Art Gallery. Assessment involves two reading reflections, a class presentation, and a final paper. Course prerequisites include a course in either Art History, Material Culture, or Jewish or Middle East History.

From the patriotic tunes of the inter-war mandatory period to the underground music of the Arab Uprisings, Middle Eastern and North African popular music is deeply entangled with politics. Since the late nineteenth century, states and various social groups have attempted to channel the power of patriotic hymns and subversive songs. This course draws on the sociology and anthropology of culture to revisit the history of the region through music. It looks beyond periods of political upheaval to understand the everyday significance of musical practices in authoritarian, neoliberal, and postcolonial settings. Whether we understand it as a tightly knit web of meaning or as a soundwave that travels around and beyond the Middle East, popular music – its production, circulation, and consumption— tells a larger story about the making and remaking of identities and power relations in modern nation-states in the region.