WOH3286/JST3930/REL3938
Weekly
Schedule
Spring,
2008
Week I
8 January Introduction
10 January The Jews in
Medieval Christian Europe, Social and Religious Shifts
Reading: Bell, Jews in the Early Modern World, 1-33 Fine, 325-338; David Nirenberg, "Enmity and Assimilation:
Jews, Christians, and Converts in Medieval Spain" in Common Knowledge 9:1 (2003): 137-155 ; http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1432synod-castile-jews.html
You should read Jews in The Early Modern World at your own pace, though the
midterm examination questions will take it for grated that you have read and
absorbed the material contained in this book. The sooner you read it, the
sooner you will feel at ease with unfamiliar terms and concepts.
Week II
15 January 1492: The Expulsion of
the Jews from Spain and its Aftermath
17 January Portugal
and Beyond
Reading: Blood Purity Laws; Fine 143-154; http://www.sephardicstudies.org/decree.html ; http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/jewish/1492-jews-spain1.html; E. Michael
Gerli, "Social Crisis and Conversion: Apostasy and Inquisition in the
Chronicles of Fernando de Pulgar and Andres Bernaldez" in Hispanic
Review 70:2 (2002): 147-167
Week
III
22 January Dona Gracia Nasi and the
Settlement of the Sephardic Diaspora
24 January The
Rebirth of Jewish Culture Under Islam
Reading: Ruth Lamdan, "Jewish Women as Providers in the
Generations Following the Expulsion from Spain" in Nashim no. 13 (2007): 49-67; Fine, 237-247, and 348-352. http://www.history.umd.edu/Faculty/BCooperman/EarlyMod/ProvencalSalonikaJews(1550).htm
http://www.history.umd.edu/Faculty/BCooperman/EarlyMod/Zarfati(1454).htm
http://www.history.umd.edu/Faculty/BCooperman/NewCity/Closure.html
Week IV
29 January Lurianic
Kabbalah and the Theodicy of Exile
31 January
Lurianic
Kabbalah and the Theodicy of Exile
Reading: Fine,
375-398; J.H. Chajes, "He Said, She Said: Hearing the
Voices of Pneumatic Early Modern Jewish Women," in Nashim no. 10 (2005): 99-125
Week V
5 February Amsterdam
7 February Amsterdam
Reading: Miriam Bodian, "Men of the Nation: The Shaping
of Converso Identity in Early Modern Europe" in Past and Present no. 143 (1994): 48-76; Benedict Spinoza, Theologio-Political
Treatise, Preface
through Chapter II, http://www.yesselman.com/ttpelws1.htm#PREFACE
Week VI
12 February Return to France and
England
15 February Menasseh
ben Israel
Reading: http://www.library.yale.edu/judaica/exhibits/haggadah/exhibit2.html; Fine, 298-317; Encyclopedia Judaica, "Manasseh ben Israel" (enter this site through the library's remote logon link if
accessing it from home); Menasseh ben Israel The
Hope of Israel (you
will need to access this through remote logon if working from home); Richard Cogley "The Ancestry of the American
Indians: Thomas Thorowgood's 'Iewes in America' (1650) and 'The Jews in
America' 1660" in English Literary Renaissance 35:2 (2005): 304-330.
Week
VII
19 February Representations of Jewry in England
21 February Merchant
of Venice
Reading: The Merchant of Venice, http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/merchant/; Jonathan Schorsch, "Blacks, Jews and the Racial Imagination in
the Writings of Sephardim in the Long Seventeenth Century" in Jewish
History 19:1 (2005) 109-135
Week
VIII
26 February (New)
Jews in the Americas
28 February MIDTERM
BE SURE TO BRING A BLUE BOOK!!
Week IX
4 March The Reformation, Luther and the Jews
6 March Early
Modern Ritual Murder Accusations
Reading: Fine, 155-167 and 215-226; Martin Luther, Letter to
Spalatin, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1514luther.html; Martin Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies; Begin reading A Man of Three
Worlds
Week X
Spring break
11 & 13 March
Week XI
18 March Jewish
Life in Renaissance Italy
20 March Jewish
Life in Renaissance Italy
Reading: Fine,
52-60, 203-209; Stephanie
Siegmund "Division of the Dowry on the Death of the Daughter: An Instance
in the Negotiation of Laws and Jewish Customs in Early Modern Tuscany" in Jewish
History 16:1 (2002) 73-206
Week
XII
25 March Economy and Culture in the Ghetto
27 March Leone
de Modena
Reading: Fine,
453-469; Bernard D.
Cooperman "Ethnicity and Institution Building among Jews in Early Modern
Rome" in AJS Review 30:1
(2006) 119-145
Week
XIII
1 April Gluckel
of Hameln
3 April Shabbtai
Tzvi
Reading: Fine, 470-482; Fine, 483-497; Robert Liberles, ""She sees that her merchandise is good,
and her lamp is not extinguished at nighttime" : Glikl's memoir as
historical source" in Nashim 7 (2004): 11-27
Week
XIV
8 April Shabbtai
Tzvi
10 April Jewish Life in
Poland: Hasidim and Mitnagdim
Reading: Richard Popkin and Stephanie Chasin "The
Sabbatian Movement in Turkey (1703-1708) and Reverberations in Northern
Europe" in The Jewish Quarterly Review 94:2 (2004) 300-317; Fine, 399-412; Magdalena Teter "Jewish Conversion to
Catholicism in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries" in Jewish History 17:3 (2003) 257-283
Week XV
15 April Jewish Life in Medieval
Poland
17 April The
Ba'al Shem Tov and the Vilna Gaon: The eve of Modernity
Reading: Fine, 61-73
and 498-520; Sharon Flatto,
"Hasidim and Mitnaggedim: Not a World Apart" in Journal of Jewish
Thought and Philosophy 12:2 (2003)
99-121
*Second writing assignment due
Week
XVI
22 April Conclusion
Reading: Voltaire, A Treatise on Tolerance, http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/voltaire.html.
1 May 3:00-5:00
pm - Final Exam