Sem in Modern Jewish History

Catalog description

This graduate seminar explores the questions, themes, and methods animating the field of modern Jewish history today. With attention to the development of the field—the scholarship and politics that established it—the seminar aims to generate a conversation about the production of historical knowledge. How does recent scholarship reflect the field’s history and current-day political and cultural pressures? To what extent do political and identity-based concerns authorize or undermine the scholarly project of modern Jewish history? How has the development of the field privileged specific geographic areas while ignoring others? To what extent might we consider subfields of American Jewish history, Holocaust studies, Israel studies, and more part of the broader project of modern Jewish history? And, finally, what might the future hold for the field? Students will have opportunities to lead discussions, write book reviews, and produce a historiographical essay related to their own subfield of interest.