JWST 371 - The Fishman Seminar

Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)

The course is offered by the Fishman Fellow in Jewish Studies, appointed annually to lecture on his/her scholarly concerns in the field of Jewish history, texts or culture. Students are encouraged to take note of the fact that each Fishman Seminar is uniquely offered and will not be repeated. Since the topic changes every year, the course may be taken for credit more than once.

Topic for 2018/19b: Who Owns Judaism? Ritual, Gender & Authority. This course examines the interrelationships of ritual, gender, and authority in postmodern Judaism from a variety of perspectives, using ethnographic studies, feminist theory, ritual theory, queer theory, and anthropological analysis to identify and analyse trends, factors, and influences in a range of controversial issues affecting Jews around the world. We trace the contours of current issues back to rabbinic texts, where relevant, and use historical information to examine development in ritual. Issues spanning the denominational range are examined (rabbinic ordination, a case study of a new ritual [bat mitzvah], and modern strategies of reappropriation of ritual), as well as those that are currently particularly controversial in the Orthodox world (text study, new communal rituals for women). A wide range of examples and case studies are investigated. Students develop a critical awareness of the wider social and political implications of ritual, and how it can serve as an arena for contestation of authority. They are exposed to a variety of theoretical approaches that can be applied in other contexts, and develop their analytical ability and knowledge of key issues facing modern Judaism, across the denominational range. Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz.

First six-week course.

One 2-hour period.