85521 - Jewish Culture in The Modern Period

Learning outcomes

The course aims, by studying specific historical moments as indicated in the syllabus and in the bibliography, at offering an essential knowledge on Jewish modern and contemporary history, with peculiar reference to Jewish emancipation, the persecution of the Jews in the 20th century, to the establishment of the State of Israel and the problems connected with the permanent re-definition of Jewish identity between religion, culture and statehood. As an ideal outcome, the student will dispose of the necessary comptence for discerning the peculiarity of Jewish experience in the modern and contemporary world; will be able to pursue specific research interests in the field; will be able to define with methodological rigour and with a critical attitude the Jewish contribution to the wake and the crisis of modernity; he will have at his disposal analytic instruments for examining the conflictual dynamics and the possible paths of convergence and dialogue between different religious and secular cultures on the contemporary world stage.

Course contents

The course aims at providing an overall picture of Jewish history and society in Western Europe, in Palestine and in Israel during the modern period basing on the analysis of a variety of texts and case-studies allowing to investigate the relationship between the Jews and politics and, ultimately, the formation of Jewish self-representation as a political body with its own political agenda. Thus, among others, the following questions will be tackled with throughout the course: What was the relationship between the Jews and their diasporic homelands in the early modern era? How did the attitude of early-modern Jewish historians towards Jewish history contribute to shaping Jewish self-awareness and Zionist ideologies? What was the contribution of non-Jewish writers and intellectuals to the spreading and the confering of dignity to the idea that the Jewish people should have a national home of their own? What was the impact of Zionist ideologies in the shaping of everyday life in Palestine and in Israel? The course will hinge on the analysis of a series of texts and case studies spanning from the late-fifteenth to the twentieth century. Among the subjects tackled with during the course are the following: the role of Jewish courtiers in late fifteenth-century Spain; the political and messianic thinking of Isaac Abravanel; Jewish ‘patriotic’ attachment in the communities of the Venetian Stato da Mar; Jewish historiography and the shaping of Jewish self-image; Baruch Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670); George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda (1876); the Zionist ideologies.

Readings/Bibliography

Ram Ben-Shalom, Medieval Jews and the Christian Past. Jewish historical consciousness in Spain and Southern France, translated by Chaya Naor, Oxford and Portland (Or.) 2016.

Cedric Cohen-Skalli, Don Isaac Abravanel. An intellectual biography, Chicago 2020.

George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, edited with an introduction and notes by Graham Handley.

Louis Finkelstein, Jewish Self-Government in the Middle Ages, New York 1964.

Martin Goodman, A History of Judaism, London 2019.

Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel, New York 2003.

Steven Nadler, A Book Forged in Hell. Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age, Princeton and Oxford 2011.

Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, London 2007.

Shimon Peres, Battling for Peace. Memoirs, edited by David Landau, London 1995.

Teaching methods

Traditional

Seminarial discussion

Assessment methods

Oral exam

Non attending students must contact prof. Corazzol in order to prepare a personalized reading list

Teaching tools

Further bibliographic suggestions and research pathways will be offered during the course

Office hours

See the website of Giacomo Corazzol