POLT 218 - Jews and Power

FC SSCI CD

4 credits
Popular conceptions of the relationship between Jews and power tend either to adopt (in the case of sympathetic accounts) a view of Jews as perennial victims or (in the case of hostile/antisemitic accounts) a view of Jews as overly or preternaturally powerful. This course attempts to complicate that bipolar framework by exploring a more diverse range of encounters between Jews and power from antiquity to the present. In addition to historical writing, we will also examine religious, philosophical, and political texts that exemplify different ways that Jews and non-Jews alike have imagined or understood the Jewish relationship to power.

This course is cross-listed with JWST-218