JWST 315 - Jews, Jewish Identity and the Arts

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as RELI 315) Topic for 2023/24b: People of the Image: Jews and Visual Art. This course investigates the ways in which Jews have used visual culture to express religious ideas and address political circumstances, primarily in the premodern era. It interrogates the ideas of creation and creativity, the permissibility or impermissibility of the image in Judaism, the authorship of “Jewish” visual culture and whether/why this matters, the construction of individual and communal Jewish identity through art, architecture, and texts, and relations— collusions as well as collisions— between Jews and non-Jews as they play out in the realm of visual and material culture. Marc Epstein.

Prerequisite(s): One course in Jewish Studies, Religion or permission of the instructor.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS