[Jewish] IMPORTANT SPRING COURSE!!

[Rachel Rubinstein]

HACU 246: Israel: Texts and Contexts

Spring 2012 Wednesdays 1-3:50



I am writing to let you know that I will be offering a course at Hampshire this
spring that explores Zionism and contemporary Israeli society through
literature. I see this course as an opportunity for students to engage with
novels, short stories, film, and political essays that were critical in forming
and interpreting Israel’s founding myths and collective identity, and that offer
thoughtful critiques of the country’s social and political realities. This is an
opportunity for students to study Israeli culture in an academic setting that
emphasizes close, critical reading of primary texts and informed, respectful
discussion. Authors will include Theodore Herzl (founder of political Zionism),
S.Y. Agnon (Nobel Prize winner), S. Yizhar (who explored the origins of the
Palestinian refugee problem), internationally acclaimed novelists Amos Oz (on
the kibbutz movement) and A.B. Yehoshua (who challenges historical
meta-narratives), Sayed Keshua (a Palestinian Israeli who writes about the
lives of Israel’s Palestinian citizens for the left-leaning daily Haaretz),
Emuna Elon (a novelist and journalist who lives in a West Bank settlement), and
many, many others.  At its core, we will explore the relationship between
literature and politics in order to arrive at a more mature, nuanced
understanding of the tensions and contradictions that make Israel a topic of
significant interest to students interested in the Middle East.



This is a one-time academic offering at Hampshire that will meet once per week,
on Wednesday afternoons from 1-3:50. It is open to students at all levels and
there are no prerequisites.



Faculty Bio:

Dr. Justin Cammy is Director of the Program in Middle East Studies and Associate
Professor of Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature at Smith College. He has
a B.A. in Middle East Studies from McGill University and a Ph.D. in Near
Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. Professor Cammy
first visited the Middle East in 1988, and has since returned more than two
dozen times to live, work, study, and research. In 2007 he spent seven months
as a visiting scholar at the Harman Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the
Hebrew University, and he has taught at Tel Aviv University three times in its
summer Yiddish institute. In summer 2011 he co-directed Smith College’s
inaugural Global Engagement Seminar in Jerusalem, a course that combined an
academic seminar on the religious history and contested politics of Jerusalem
with a two month student internship. He has also traveled extensively in Egypt,
Jordan, Syria, and Morocco. In 2006, he was awarded the Sherrerd Prize for
Distinguished Teaching at Smith.



Rachel Rubinstein
Associate Professor of American Literature and Jewish Studies
Dean of Academic Support and Advising
Hampshire College
(413) 559-5821