Magda Teter-Associate Professor of History Faculty Photo

Magda Teter

Associate Professor
of History

Wesleyan University

Allbritton 203

Middletown, CT 06459

Tel: 860.685.5356

Fax: 860.685.2078

mteter@wesleyan.edu

Office Hours: Tuesday 3:30-5 or by appointment


History Department

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HIST 248 – Jewish History: Thinking Beyond the Ghetto

This course explores Jewish history on the eve of modernity and during the modern era.  Modern Jewish experience has often been characterized as an era of increasing participation of Jews in the civil society, and was juxtaposed to the "premodern" era of the ghettoes.  This course will explore these dichotomous stereotypes, and introduce students to the complexity of the Jewish experience, their active involvement in the political and cultural processes that were taking place in the "non-Jewish" environment both before and during the modern times.  We will see Jews as a part of the social and cultural fabric, rather than an "alienated minority" whose history is separate from that of their surroundings. We’ll explore the transformations from a traditional society, defined by religious identities, into a modern society, of complex religious, ethnic, political identities.  We’ll look at the acceptance of and resistance to the new ideas brought by the Enlightenment, and explore the consequences of secularization of the society, including the rise of modern anti-Semitism, Jewish nationalism, Zionism, the Holocaust, questions of women and gender, migrations, and religious fundamentalism etc.

Course Requirements            Course Readings

CLASS SCHEDULE

1. Tue. 09/08 Introduction: From medieval times to modernity, the Geography of Jewish Settlements.

Maps

Early modern period:

2. Th. 09/10  New Era of Printing: Impact of Print on Jewish Culture: ERESERVES:

3. Tue. 09/15 After the Expulsion: Historiography, Kabbalah, and Messianic Expectations  

4. Th. 09/17  Visit to Special Collections.  Class will meet at  the Olin Library Special Collection: group 1: at 11:55 and group 2: 1:50

LIBRARY ASSIGNMENT POSTED

5. Tue.  09/22 After the Expulsion: Messianic Expectations and Messianic Movements (readings above) BIBLIOGRAPHIC ASSIGNMENT POSTED

Wed. 09/23 LECTURE by Professor Lawrence Fine, 'We are bound to one another as if we were one person': Spiritual Friendship in Jewish Mystical Traditions, PAC 004, 4:15 pm.

6. Th. 09/24 ENDNOTE SESSION in Allbritton 204

7. Tue. 09/29  Jewish Life and Culture:

Further recommended reading: Fram, Ideals Face Reality, 67-105

8. Th.  10/01 CLASS WILL START AT 1:00pm Protestant Reformation, Counter-Reformation and the Jews.

9. Tue. 10/06 Intellectual crisis and "Precursors" of Modernity: Spinoza

10. Th. 10/08 Jews in Muslim Lands

11. Tu. 10/13   The Meaning of Modernity and Social and Legal Changes:

 BIBLIOGRAPHIC ASSIGNMENT DUE

12. Th. 10/15  The Enlightenment: Moses Mendelssohn and the Berlin Haskalah: Moses Mendelssohn Jerusalem (33-75, 77-139), Jew in the Modern World, 70-76

Modernity:

 13. Tu. 10/20   Revolution and Emancipation. Jew in the Modern World pp.114-135; 141-154

14 Th. 10/22  Responses to Modernity I: Religious Reform

MIDTERM DUE FRIDAY 10/23 at 5PM

OCTOBER BREAK 10/23-10/28: NO CLASS 10/27

15. Th. 10/29 Responses to Modernity II: Modern Orthodoxy Jew in the Modern World pp.169-173; 197-211)

16. Tu. 11/03 Responses to Modernity III: Acculturation, Conversions, and the Science of Judaism

17. Th. 11/05  Responses to Modernity IV: Jews in Arab Lands:

18. Tue. 11/10 Hasidism

19. Th. 12/12:  Jewish Women and Modernity.

20. Tu. 11/17 Stirrings of New Anti-Semitism. Jew in the Modern World pp. 304-334; 343-356 Paper Drafts Due FRIDAY 11/20 3 PM

21. Th. 11/19 Jewish Nationalism: Zionism T. Herzl The Jewish State (entire)

Suggested additional readings:  Jew in the Modern World, 532-566; 594-611

22. Tu. 11/24 Other Forms of Jewish Nationalisms Jew in the Modern World pp. 402-404, 417-429

THANKSGIVING BREAK 11/24 (after classes end)-11/30: NO CLASS 11/26

23. Tue. 12/01 Migrations

24. Th. 12/03  The Second World War and the Holocaust: Jew in the Modern World, 634-699.

Tuesday, 12/03 "Turn Left at the End of the World" (Israel, 2003), 7 pm, PAC 004, dinner will be served.

25. Tu. 12/08 Israel-A Modern State: Jew in the Modern World, 603-633 PAPERS DUE at 12 pm

26. Th. 12/10 Modern Jewish Identity (Jew in the Modern World p. 278-286, 289-301)

FINAL EXAM WILL BE A TAKE HOME EXAM DUE AT THE REGISTRAR'S SCHEDULED TIME