Instructor: David L Graizbord
Fri | 1:00 AM - 1:50 PM | In Person
The course introduces students to ways in which scholars read and interpret resiliency in culture, especially Jewish culture--one of the most resilient in history--through the analysis of historical documents). Students will develop thinking and communication skills required to make persuasive, sophisticated arguments and plans about the ways in which successful cultures are constructed, and about what personal identities and cultures “do” for the people who build and maintain them. Students are expected to demonstrate (1) an ability to read historical documents critically and apply their lessons to their own situations as students and citizens; (2) an ability to speak and write about these documents in sophisticated, correct speech and prose. In addition, the students’ oral discussions and writing for the class should (3) demonstrate an awareness of the elements of resilient personhood and peoplehood as defined by anthropological writing assigned to them; lastly, the students are expected to demonstrate (4) an ability to discuss main themes and phenomena in the formation and manifestation of (Jewish and other) identities in history from an informed perspective.