4000 Level Courses

AP/SOCI 4040 6.0 JEWISH COMMUNITIES

This course offers an examination of Jewish communities in a variety of historical and contemporary settings, including immigration experience, family life, culture, and identity.

FORMAT: Two three hour seminars per week.

EVALUATION: N/A

READINGS: N/A

PROJECTED ENROLMENT: N/A

RESERVED SPACES: All spaces reserved for Year 4 Honours Sociology and Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity Majors and Minors.

PREREQUISITE: N/A

COURSE CREDIT EXCLUSIONS: N/A

COURSE DIRECTOR(S): Rina Cohen

FA/MUSI 4045 3.0 KLEZMER ENSEMBLE

Practical performance instruction in the Klezmer musical tradition. Some performance ability and knowledge of fiddle, bass, guitar, piano, clarinet, sax, accordion, or trumpet is required. (Other instruments are welcomed.)

FORMAT: N/A

EVALUATION: N/A

READINGS: N/A

PROJECTED ENROLMENT: N/A

RESERVED SPACES: N/A

PREREQUISITE: Appropriate lower level or permission of the instructor required for upper level registration. Open to majors and nonmajors.

COURSE CREDIT EXCLUSIONS: N/A

COURSE DIRECTOR(S): TBA

FA/MUSI 4099A 3.0/6.0 ASHKENAZI AND SEPHARDIC VOCAL MUSIC

Private voice lessons in Ashkenazi, Klezmer, Yiddish and Sephardic (especially JudeoSpanish) singing and song repertoires. Emphasis on text clarity, stylistic awareness and repertoire development will be featured. Open to majors and nonmajors.

FORMAT: N/A

EVALUATION: N/A

READINGS: N/A

PROJECTED ENROLMENT: N/A

RESERVED SPACES: N/A

PREREQUISITE: Appropriate lower level or permission of the instructor.

COURSE CREDIT EXCLUSIONS: N/A

COURSE DIRECTOR(S): TBA

AP/HIST 4100 6.0 SELECTED PROBLEMS IN ISRAELITE HISTORY

In 2010/2011, this seminar focuses on all primary written sources pertaining directly to Israel from its first appearance until the about 580 B.C.E. The Bible will play a secondary role in this course. We shall read extensively from the nonBiblical writings and ask, eventually: “Can a history of Israel be written without the Bible?” The major essay will be the writing of such a history

FORMAT: N/A

EVALUATION: N/A

READINGS: N/A

PROJECTED ENROLMENT: N/A

RESERVED SPACES: N/A

PREREQUISITE: N/A

COURSE CREDIT EXCLUSIONS: Prior TO FALL 2009: AS/HIST 4100 6.00.

COURSE DIRECTOR(S): Prof. M. Maidman.

NB: Please note that students who wish to take any AP/HIST 4000level course must submit an application to the History department by April 1 st , 2010. The applications are available at: www.yorku.ca/laps/hist. The form and information for FW10/11 4000level courses can be found under "Documents and Forms.”

FA/VISA 4800K 3.0 IMAGE WARS: ICONOCLASM AND IDOLATRY

This seminar explores issues of image worship and destruction in several cultural contexts. Topics include: images as magic; fetish and taboo; Judaic, Christian and Muslim interpretations of the Second Commandment; the 9thc. Christian Iconoclastic Controversy; individual, state and revolutionary destruction of images. In a world increasingly saturated with visual images and information across a range of media, it is crucial to understand the power of images on human consciousness, and the ways that power has been deployed, celebrated, circumscribed and challenged.

What is the significance of the human need to make images, or to attack and destroy them? What is the image's magical or sacrilegious power? The elaborate attention to imagestheir proliferation and their proscription, their sacred and blasphemous forms, their permissions and taboosis central to all three major monotheistic religions Judaism, Christianity, Islam. How has this concern with images and imagemaking shaped cultural responses to the visual field? And in the modern period, where visual forms dominate much of mass culture, how do modern icons and image control create sites of fascination and heightened consciousness? This course examines these questions through several historical epochs and cultures. Magic, fetish and taboo serve as a starting point.

The course then explores ancient icons and idolatries, with a view to understanding the force and the limits of the aesthetic icon, as well as the ethical and moral implications of the Biblical Second Commandment ("Thou shalt not make any graven images…") for the three major faiths. For the modern period (from the late eighteenth century on), the course considers examples of secular and official image destruction (French Revolution, Paris Commune 1871, Soviet Image control and the fall of the USSR, the fall of Saddam Hussein and lootings in Iraq.)

FORMAT: N/A

EVALUATION: N/A

READINGS: N/A

PROJECTED ENROLMENT: N/A

RESERVED SPACES: N/A

PREREQUISITE: N/A

COURSE CREDIT EXCLUSIONS: N/A

COURSE DIRECTOR(S): Carol Zemel

AP/HUMA 4818 3.0 SHAPING JEWISH MEMORY

This course explores how Jewish communities and individuals have remembered, interpreted and given meaning to the past to shape identity and values. It studies fiction, nonfiction, photographs, films, liturgy, and other vehicles of memory.

FORMAT: N/A

EVALUATION: N/A

READINGS: N/A

PROJECTED ENROLMENT: 22

RESERVED SPACES: All spaces reserved for Year 3 and Year 4 Humanities and Religious Studies Majors and Minors.

PREREQUISITE: N/A

COURSE CREDIT EXCLUSIONS: AP/HUMA 4818 6.00. PRIOR TO FALL 2009: AS/HUMA 4818 6.00, AS/HUMA 4818 3.00.

COURSE DIRECTOR(S): S. Horowitz.

AP/HUMA 4819 6.0 VISIONS OF THE END: EARLY JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN APOCALYPTICISM

This course investigates the origins, development and continuing legacies of apocalypticism in ancient Judaism and in the history of Christianity. We will focus on understanding: (1) apocalyptic literature (biblical and nonbiblical, including 1 Enoch, Daniel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Revelation); (2) millennial movements; and (3) the apocalyptic worldview, which centers on the notion of God’s ultimate intervention in order to destroy evil and inaugurate an eternal perfect kingdom. We will spend some time looking at the legacies of apocalypticism for religious movements, popular culture (e.g. film), and artistic representation in late antiquity, the middle ages, and the modern world to the present day.

Students taking the course will come to understand important aspects of social and religious life in the ancient world (especially Second Temple Judaism and the Jesus movement) while also acquiring firsthand knowledge of a religious worldview that has come to play an important role in the history of Christianity and western civilization. Although analysis of literary evidence will be central, students will also acquire skills in analyzing visual materials (e.g. art and film).

A variety of assignments involving both written and oral communication will develop students’ ability to express themselves clearly and to engage in research in an academic manner. The course will be designed to encourage both interactive and selfdirected learning among these upperlevel students.

FORMAT: N/A

EVALUATION: Presentations / discussion leadership (20%); Participation (20%); Book review 1 (10%); Essay (15%); Proposal and bibliography for major paper (10%); Major research paper, 1520 pages (25%).

READINGS: Norman Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos and the World To Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith. 2nd edition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001; John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. 2nd edition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998; Paul Boyer. When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992.

PROJECTED ENROLMENT: 22

RESERVED SPACES: All spaces reserved for Year 3 and Year 4 Humanities and Religious Studies Majors and Minors.

PREREQUISITE: N/A

COURSE CREDIT EXCLUSIONS: AP/HUMA 4819 3.0 PRIOR TO FALL 2009: AS/HUMA 4819 3.00, AS/HUMA 4819 6.00.

COURSE DIRECTOR(S): P. Harland.

AP/HUMA 4821 3.0 CULTURE, SOCIETY & VALUES IN ISRAEL

This course offers an interdisciplinary exploration of the values
and cultures of Israel and their evolution, expression, and
reflection in cultural production, social structures, politics and
history.

The purpose of the course is to examine the historical-modern factors
which are connected to the shaping of the culture, society and values of
the State of Israel, focusing on six main themes: the process of the
partition of the Land of Israel and of determining the borders of the
State of Israel; Jerusalem and Zionism; religion and settlement;
Israel's transformation from a collective society to an individual one;
Israel, the Diaspora and the holocaust.

The course's themes will be examined from a geographical-historical
point of view. We will focus on transformations taking place in Israel
as a spatial expression of central variables – social, cultural and
ethical – and will examine their dynamics.

FORMAT: N/A

EVALUATION: N/A

READINGS: N/A

PROJECTED ENROLMENT: 22

RESERVED SPACES: All spaces reserved for Year 3 and Year 4 Humanities and Jewish Studies Majors and Minors.

PREREQUISITE: N/A

COURSE CREDIT EXCLUSIONS: PRIOR TO FALL 2009: AS/HUMA 4821 3.00.

COURSE DIRECTOR(S): Moshe Naor

AP/HUMA 4823 3.0 CONTEMPORARY ISRAELI SOCIETY: Social History of the State

This course explores how Israel offers a theoretical and practical model for explorations of questions surrounding national identity, religion and the state, war and society, management of linguistic and religious diversity and environmental regulation. This course focuses on the years since the establishment of the State of Israel and on the period after the 1967 war, a crucial dividing line in Israeli history.

FORMAT: N/A

EVALUATION: N/A

READINGS: N/A

PROJECTED ENROLMENT: N/A

RESERVED SPACES: All spaces reserved for Year 3 and Year 4 Humanities and Jewish Studies Majors and Minors.

PREREQUISITE: N/A

COURSE CREDIT EXCLUSIONS: N/A

COURSE DIRECTOR(S): Moshe Naor

TIME: T 2:30 - 5:30pm

LOCATION: CC208