NEJS 260b: The Jewish Intellectual: Historical Consciousness and Secularization

Professor: Eugene R. SheppardSemester: Fall 2017

Class Meetings: Room: Lown 103

Office: Lown 307Email:

Hours: Thursday 9:30-11:00amPhone: 781-736-2965

Course Description:

This course explores foundational primary and secondary relating to the development of “the Jewish intellectual” and its articulation of historical consciousness since medieval times. How did Jews come to rethink their temporal and special situatedness in dramatically changing conditions from the middle ages through the present? While history and memory may serve as a broad thematic prism for the course, specific concern will also be directed towards the entangled developments of the secular and theological; exile/diaspora and the desirability of return (national and/or religious); and impact of variousmodes of enlightenment, nationalism, socialism, liberalism, and authoritarianism/fascism. Texts will be selected across fields of history, philosophy, inter-religious debates, and political thought.

Learning Objectives

*Review and engage conceptual scholarly debates relevant to Jewish history and thought

*Review and discuss sources critically and contextualize their significance within larger bodies of scholarship as training for written and oral qualifying as well as for the dissertation prospectus

*Write persuasive review essay and speak critically about central historiographical debates

*Sharpen and problematize such distinctions as collective memory and history

*Learn techniques to formulate effective historical and interpretive questions

Late work policy: Unless there are legitimate reasons (e.g., serious illness or personal circumstances), work will not be accepted more than one week past the due date. Work turned in late will be docked 2% per day.

Academic integrity: Academic integrity is central to the mission of educational excellence at Brandeis University. Each student is expected to turn in work completed independently, except when assignments specifically authorize collaborative effort. It is not acceptable to use the words or ideas of another person–be it a world-class philosopher or your lab partner–without proper acknowledgment of that source. This means that you must use footnotes and quotation marks to indicate the source of any phrases, sentences, paragraphs, or ideas found in published volumes, on the internet, or created by another student.

Violations of University policies on academic integrity, described in Section three of Rights and Responsibilities, may result in failure in the course or on the assignment, or in suspension or dismissal from the University. If you are in doubt about the instructions for any assignment in this course, it is your responsibility to ask for clarification.

Students with documented disabilities: Students with disabilities certified by the Coordinator of Academic Accommodations for Students with Disabilities in the Office of Undergraduate Academic Affairs and First Year Services will be given reasonable accommodations to complete required assignments. Disabilities that are not documented and approved by the Office of Academic Affairs will not be given accommodations.

Preparation time: Success in this 4 credit hour course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of 9 hours of study time per week in preparation for class (readings, papers, discussion sections, and preparation for exams) and writing assignments.

NO LAPTOPS AND CELLPHONES IN CLASS

Because use of laptop computers in class often proves to be a distraction, they shall be banned from use in this seminar.

Course Requirements and Grading: The course grade will be comprised In addition to making regular oral presentations regarding assigned readings (40%), each student will be expected to submit two short 2-3 page review of a reading (20%) as well as a literature review of at least one area which most directly relates to his/her focus. The paper should be 12-15 pages (40%).

Provisional Proposed Readings (subject to revision based upon the core areas of interest relevant to enrolled students):

The Jewish Intellectual, Science, and Secularization

  1. Ethan B. Katz, Ari Joskowicz, Secularism in Question: Jews and Judaism in Modern Times (2015)
  2. Paul Mendes-Flohr, “Jewish Intellectuals: A MethodologicalProlegomena” in Divided passions : Jewish intellectuals and the experience of modernity (1991)
  3. Zvi Ben-DorBenite and Moshe Behar, “Introduction” ModernMiddle Eastern Jewish Politics,
  4. Enzo Traverso, The End of Jewish Modernity(2017)
  1. Isaac Deuthscher, The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays
  1. Georg Simmel, “The Stranger”

History, Memory and Historical Consciousness

  1. Y.H. Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish history and memory
  1. Amos Funkenstein,
  1. Perceptions of Jewish History (1993)
  2. Signonot be-farshanut ha-Miḳra bi-yeme ha-benayim. (1991)
  3. Maimonides-: nature, history and messianic beliefs (1997)/ טבע, היסטוריה ומשיחיות אצל הרמב״ם(1983)
  1. Ronny Miron, The Angel of Jewish History : the image of the Jewish past in the twentieth century

The Heretical and the Mystical

  1. Pawel ,Sabbatian Heresy: Writings on Mysticism, Messianism, and the Origins of Jewish Modernity (2017)

Autobiography and Biography: History, Between Religion, and Nation,

  1. Wissenschaft des Judentums

Required Reading

IsmarSchorsch, Leopold Zunz

  1. Zionism, History, and the Present

: ציונות ומלנכוליה : החיים הקצרים של ישראל זרחי (2015)

  1. Holocaust and Zionism:

Saul Friedlander, When Memory Comes

  1. GershomSholem
  2. From Berlin to Jerusalem
  3. Biographies of Scholem: Amir Engel, Noam Zadoff, and David Biale

Political Theology and the Modern

  1. AmnonRaz-Krakotzkin, “Secularism, the Christian Ambivalence Toward the Jews, and the Notion of Exile” in Katz and Joskowicz
  2. Christoph Schmidt
  3. Christoph Schmidt and Elli Schonfeld ,האלוהים לא ייאלם דום : המודרנה היהודית והתיאולוגיה הפוליטית(2009)
  4. Christoph Schmidt, “Subjectivities after the Death of the Subject” , pp. 1-8, 103-20 “Till the End of Love: Eros and Time in the Constitution of Modern Subjectivity,” in Post-Subjectivity, edited by Christoph Schmidt, Merav Mack (2015)
  5. Die theopolitischeStundezwölfPerspektiven auf das eschatologische Problem der Moderne(2007)