Religiones Comparadas: Judaísmo

This course provides an overview of history of Judaism and Jews over the course of the pre-Modern era, with an emphasis on social, economic and political history, entanglements with Christianity and Islam, and the experience of Jews as minority communities in the Christian and Islamic worlds from the ninth through the sixteenth centuries. From 650–1350 the Mediterranean region was the epicenter of intense processes of innovation and exchange that laid the foundations of modern western culture. Christians, Muslims and Jews who lived throughout the region engaged with each other in collaboration and conflict: processes which transformed the social, economic, cultural, institutional and religious character of the western world and shaped their own religious beliefs. Muslims and Jews lived as minorities under Christian rule and Christians and Jews under Muslim rule. Members of the three faiths developed strategies for collaboration and cohabitation, and often formed alliances that saw them join forces with their religious rivals against their co-religionists. The first sessions will look at the origins and the emergence of Judaism, Jewish minorities in the Islamic world & pre-Modern Christian world, the second half of the course will look at the history of Muslim-Christian-Jewish relations in the medieval Mediterranean. There will be an emphasis on forces that contributed to the integration of Jewish and non-Jewish minority communities, and factors that contributed to marginalization and violence. Sessions will combine lectures (in English), readings of primary sources, and discussion (in Spanish and English).