ISRAEL STUDIES COURSES
FALL 2023
Intro to Israeli Literature - ISRL 120 - Gen Ed: G, H
Cross listed: JUST 120 / COLI 180P
Time: M/W/F 10:50-11:50
Instructor: Lior Libman
This survey course introduces students to texts (poems, short stories, novels) and
themes (nation-building, conflict, gender constructions, ethnic and religious tensions)
in Israeli literature from 1948 to the present. We will place literary works within
their historical, cultural and political contexts and examine them to illustrate the
main features of the time. Texts will be read in translation. No previous knowledge
is required. The course is a Core Course for the Minor in Israel Studies, a Literature
Course for the Major/Minor in Hebrew, and an Area Course in Israel Studies for the
Major/Minor in Judaic Studies.
Modern Israel - ISRL 150 - Gen Ed: N
Cross listed: JUST 150 / HIST 150
Time: T/R 11:40-1:05
Instructor: Shay Rabineau
This course presents an overview of the history of Israel from its origins in the
Zionist movement to the present. Key topics include: political relations and international
diplomacy leading to the establishment of the state in 1948; Israel's wars with its
neighbors; conflict with the Palestinians; religion and government; internal divisions
between Ashkenazic and Sephardi/Mizrachi Jews; and Israeli cultural life. No previous
knowledge is assumed or required. Students who had taken the course under the original
number will not receive credit for re-taking the course with the new number.
Secular Jewish Identities – ISRL 280B - Gen Ed: H
Cross listed: JUST 284D / HIST 285D
Time: W 4:40-7:40
Instructor: Allan Arkush
This course will focus on the emergence and development in modern times of essentially
non-religious definitions of Jewish identity and strategies for maintaining Jewish
survival. It will explore writings of the most important modern Jewish secularists
as well as the programs for action outlined and implemented by Jewish secularist leaders
and movements.
Walking the Land - ISRL 321 - Gen Ed: H, O
Cross listed: JUST 321
Time: T/R 2:50-4:15
Instructor: Shay Rabineau
Walking The Land: Hiking and Pilgrimage in Modern Israel/ Palestine/ The Holy Land
- This course explores the religious traditions and political movements that have
attached significance to the act of walking the land between the Jordan River and
the Mediterranean Sea, beginning in the late Ottoman period and continuing to the
present day. Students who had taken the course under the original number will not
receive credit for re-taking the course with the new number.
ISRL 327 - Israeli Palestinian Conflict in Literature – Gen Ed: H, O
Cross listed: JUST 380C / COLI 380C
Time: W 3:30-6:30
Instructor: Lior Libman
The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been represented in a wide body of Israeli
and Palestinian literary works of varied genres. In this course, we will read, analyze
and discuss, side by side, poems, short stories and novels by both Israeli and Palestinian
writers exploring questions of homeland, exile and return, longing and belonging,
Self and Other. We will examine the relationships between historical, political and
literary narratives, and the ways in which images and metaphors both reflect and shape
national affinities. We will also juxtapose the geo-political conflict with other
core issues such as religion, ethnicity, gender and sexuality.
Holocaust Literature - ISRL 380C - Gen Ed: C, H
Cross listed: JUST 341 / COLI 380B / ENG 380M
Time: T 4:25 - 7:25
Instructor: Paul-William Burch
Students in this course read literature of the Holocaust, the Churban, or the Shoah—including
diaries, journals, memoirs, fiction, poetry, and works of popular culture, informed
by the belief that literary responses to the Holocaust are, as the poet Paul Celan
has written, in themselves "material evidence of that which-occurred." The course
includes works by First Generation writers, victims and survivors of the Shoah who
bear direct witness to the horror, as well as pieces by Second Generation writers—that
is, children and “offspring” of Holocaust survivors who bear witness to the witnesses
and to events that they did not live through but that shaped their lives.
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing. Cross-listed with English and Comparative Literature.
Not for First year students.
World War I and the Jews -ISRL 385Z - Gen Ed: G
Cross listed: JUST 380A / HIST 381N
Time: T/R 01:15 pm - 02:40 pm
Instructor: Allan Arkush
This course will investigate Jewish involvement in World War I, in all of the major
belligerent countries, as well as the ways in which the war altered the Jewish world.
Topics will include anti-Jewish pogroms on the Eastern Front, the rise in anti-Semitism
in the ranks of the German Army, the worldwide lobbying for the Balfour Declaration,
and the way in which the war reshaped Eastern European Jewry.
Nuclear politics of the Middle East - ISRL 386K - Gen Ed: G, N
Cross listed: JUST 386B / ARAB 386B / PLSC 389N
Time: T/R 1:15-2:40
Instructor: Hebatalla Taha
This is an International Relations/International Security seminar, dealing with how
nuclear politics have shaped the Middle East. We will start by covering the history
of nuclear politics and key concepts of nuclearization in international politics –
including deterrence, proliferation, restraint – as well as their critiques. We will
proceed to apply these theories to the Middle East, looking at the emergence of military
and non-military nuclear programs and reactions to them. The course deals with nuclear
bombs, energy, and other technology through a consideration of both their material
and symbolic dimensions. In addition, we will discuss the idea of a nuclear-weapon-free-zone
in the Middle East, including the impediments facing its establishment. The course
pays special attention to the Israeli nuclear program and Israeli nuclear policies
in the Middle East and beyond.
