Gender, Sexuality, and Queer Culture in Israel

Catalog description

How do people talk about sex in Israeli culture? How have Israeli authors, artists, and filmmakers approached gender and sexuality? How do the categories of gender, sexuality, and identity map onto questions of collective memory, religion and nationalism? Since its revival at the end of the nineteenth century, issues of gender and sexuality have stood at the forefront of Hebrew literature and culture. In this course, we discuss literary texts (short stories, novels and poems), visual art (photos, artwork and sculpture), and film that foreground the role of gender in the Israeli project of nation-building and identity construction. We track how attitudes towards gender, sex, and sexuality shifted from an implicit, coded approach to more explicit forms of expression. This shift took place across a century of Jewish immigration to Palestine/Israel and establishment in the country, and the focus on gender and sexuality allows us to discuss this history from a cultural perspective. The course also focuses on the LGBTQ+ community in Israel and its struggle for same-sex rights and gender equality, exploring the tensions between this struggle for equality and Israel's self-identity as a democratic and Jewish state. Offered as JWST 81, WGST 381 , and WLIT 381 . Counts as a Communication Intensive course. Counts as a Human Diversity & Commonality course. Counts as a Understanding Global Perspectives course.