Courses

In a society that is broadly ambivalent about—if not roundly antagonistic against—Jews and Judaism, how can one study Jewish texts and history? Is the study of Jews necessarily an act of apologetics or polemics? What does ‘objectivity’ mean in this loaded context? This course examines the inception and development of the modern field of Jewish Studies in nineteenth-century Germany and how the field evolved and spread from Europe to Palestine, Israel, and the United States.  Ultimately, students will grapple with the question of the place of Jews and Jewish Studies in the modern academy.

This course explores the dynamics of contact, entanglement, conflict, and differentiation between Jews and other religious or ethnic groups in the ancient Mediterranean world, both how Jews constructed the religious or ethnic “other” and how Jews were often themselves figured as “others” by those with whom they shared social and cultural worlds. The course explores the impact that intergroup encounters had on the contours of Jewish identity and practice during this formative period and on the creation and transformation of religious community and tradition from antiquity  to the present.

This seminar explores the history of right-wing political thought from the late eighteenth century to the present, with an emphasis on the role played by religious and pagan traditions. We seeks to answer questions including: what constitutes the right? What are the central philosophical, religious, and pagan, principles of those groups associated with this designation? How have the core ideas of the right changed over time? While the course is limited to the modern period, it adopts a global perspective to better understand the full scope of right-wing politics. 

An introduction to the contents of the Hebrew Bible and to the methods of its interpretation. The course focuses on the development of ancient Israelite biblical literature and religion in its historical and cultural context as well as on the theological appropriation of the Hebrew Bible for contemporary communities of faith. The course aims to make students aware of the contents of the Hebrew Bible, the history and development of ancient Israel’s literature and religion, the methods of biblical interpretation, and ways of interpreting the Hebrew Bible for modern communities of faith.

This course considers the development of biblical and ancient Near Eastern concepts of death and life-after-death. Among the topics covered are the depiction of human mortality and divine immortality in literature, dying as a social process, the development of the notion of an afterlife and the concept of the “soul,” and communication with the dead. The course examines the history of how ancient texts have shaped inherited ideas of the immortality of the soul, human suffering, and divine justice.

The course is a comprehensive introduction for Graduate Students students as well as Yale College students.  It serves as a window course to pre-modern Jewish history.  For YC students, this can lead to taking seminars on more limited topics.  For graduate students, it is a good preparation for comprehensive exams and provides a model survey course to be offered later on as an instructor.

The course focuses on translation and critical analysis of Ecclesiastes (Qohelet) from Biblical Hebrew, with continuous reference to ancient translations, related biblical and parabiblical texts, and ancient Near Eastern literary texts as relevant. The translation and analysis of primary texts are accompanied by critical evaluation of biblical scholarship.

In this course we explore the ways that the Hebrew Bible, race, and racism have been aligned and constructed from ancient Israel to the present. Topics for the course include biblical texts related to slavery, ethnicity, and foreignness; race and the Bible in early interpretation and in modern discourse; the racializing of biblical characters; black, womanist, and Africana interpretations of the Bible; and the whiteness of traditional biblical scholarship.