Writing assignments will depend on whether the student is a graduate or undergraduate. At its eighteenth century height, the Polish-Lithuanian Republic was home to eighty percent of the world's Jews. Jews were accepted into the Polish nobility and were among the Republic's wealthiest merchants. The Jewish masses, however, were among the most impoverished and socially isolated residents of the Polish state. We will examine the experience of the Holocaust in Poland, Jewish emigration following the war, and the shifting status of Holocaust memory among Poles and Jews alike.
Attendance is required.
Students will be evaluated based on their seminar participation, short papers, and final research paper of 10-15 pages. This seminar will explore aspects of European emigration over the past two centuries. As we shall see, the distinctions which seem so clear today between rationalistic science and speculative mysticism were blurred to such an extent that they were practically absent in early modern Europe. This course will focus on the beliefs and practices of selected Muslim communities in African history. The approach will be interdisciplinary, involving religious studies, art, literature, anthropology, sociology and political science as well as history.