CJS - Courses & Degree Programs

To register for classes, click here: http://gtusonis.jenzabarcloud.com

Fall 2021

HR-2058 Modern Jewish Thought
Instructor: Sam Berrin Shonkoff | Thursdays, 2:10pm–5:00pm

In this course, we will explore how Jews navigated the intellectual, political, and spiritual conditions of modernity, and the new forms of Jewish thought and identity that emerged from those encounters. This story of clash and confluence will begin with the excommunication of Baruch Spinoza, the so-called “first modern Jew,” and our investigations will lead subsequently through pathways of Jewish “enlightenment” and existentialism, religious denominations and secular nationalisms, mysticisms and fundamentalisms. While we will certainly consider ways in which various groups and thinkers formulated their ideas strategically vis-à-vis their historical circumstances, we will also strive to appreciate the personal tones and textures of their own voices. Special attention will be paid to the German-Jewish context as one genealogy of Jewish modernity. This course satisfies the required modern suvey course for M.A. and certificate students at CJS.

BSHS-3320 Introduction to Rabbinic Literature
Instructor: Charlotte Fonrobert (Stanford University) | Thursdays, 9:40am–12:30pm

This class will serve as an introduction to rabbinic literature and history. We will consider the development of rabbinic Judaism in its late-antique context and gain familiarity with the primary collections of rabbinic literature: the Talmud and Midrash. Some themes that we will explore include rabbinic Biblical hermeneutics, the origins of rabbinic law, the rise of rabbinic authority and rabbinic constructions of gender.

PR-6100 Advanced Readings in Hasidism: Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav
Instructor: Sam Berrin Shonkoff | Mondays, 2:10pm–5:00pm

This seminar is for students who wish to plunge deeply into the religious language of Hasidism, a modern Jewish mystical movement born in the heartland of Eastern Europe. Nahman of Bratslav (1772–1811) was an intriguing and controversial Hasidic sage. He exhibited intense levels of piety and mysticism, and he refracted these experiences in breathtaking ways through the prisms of Jewish textual tradition. He was also a master storyteller, and his imaginative tales translated the most enigmatic layers of spiritual consciousness into Kafka-esque forms. Although Nahman did not found a new Hasidic dynasty, his grave remains the most important site of Hasidic pilgrimage in Europe. This course will focus primarily on his magnum opus, Likutei Moharan (1810), and his tales, along with relevant secondary literature. Student engagement with Hebrew will be encouraged, but translations will be provided. 

Spring 2022

HSST-2022 Ancient and Medieval Jewish Civilization
Instructor: Deena Aranoff | Thursdays, 9:40am–12:30pm

This seminar will examine ancient and Medieval Jewish history as well as the historical-critical methodology that often shapes such an inquiry. We will explore Jewish civilization from its beginnings in ancient Israel through the medieval period and will conclude the seminar with a discussion of more recent attempts to characterize Judaism in light of modern historicist critique. This course is required for all MA and certificate students at CJS.

HR-2052 Neo-Hasidism
Instructor: Sam Berrin Shonkoff | Mondays, 2:10pm–5:00pm

Hasidism itself was a radical Jewish mystical movement that emerged in eightheenth-century Poland and spread like wildfire throughout Eastern Europe. Within just a few generations, contending with the allures of liberal secularism and assimilation, Hasidism became a cornerstone of ultra-Orthodoxy. And yet, starting in the twentieth-century, Hasidism also became an object of romantic enchantment among relatively secular Jews. Neo-Hasidism, the topic of this course, refers precisely to this phenomenon of non-Hasidic Jews drawing upon (appropriating?) Hasidism for purposes of spiritual-cultural renewal. The paths of Neo-Hasidism intersect with stories of post-liberal countercultures, orientalism, cultural Zionism, Jewish navigations of collective trauma, identity politics, psychedelics, and feminism.

PR-4900 Midrash: Jewish Seeking and Storytelling
Instructor: Sam Berrin Shonkoff | Thursdays, 2:10pm–5:00pm

Midrash—literally "seeking" or "(re)searching"—is a foundational genre of Jewish storytelling and religious imagination. Radically intertextual, midrashim interweave far-flung verses of scripture into ever new hermeneutical tapestries. They are also mind-bendingly inter-temporal, rooted in the principle that "there is no before or after in the Torah," so even revelation itself is eternally present. And they delight in multivocality, presenting contradictory interpretations side by side, separated only by a favorite phrase: "Another thing." Above all, Midrash revels in the cracks, shadows, and ambiguities of scripture, seizing textual wrinkles as catalysts for divine insight. This course will introduce students to traditional Midrash, particularly through close readings of Song of Songs Rabbah. However, we will then focus mainly on contemporary uses of Midrash through prisms of psychoanalysis, postmodern literary theory, feminism, womanism, queer hermeneutics, and the modern media of novels and films.

This is an online GTU program that features a Jewish studies component. For more info, click here.