JWST 275 - Body and Soul: Dis/ability in Jewish Cultures

FC ARHU CD

4 credits
Disability was a crucial category of identity in Jewish communities from antiquity to modernity, defining which bodies and behaviors belonged and which were excluded. Like race, gender, sexuality, and class, disability is a fluid category that exposes power relations and identity formation. This course brings together disability studies theory, the history of medicine, and representations of different forms of bodily and mental dis/ability in Jewish cultures, from the Bible to 21^st-century film and fiction, to examine the function of dis/ability, alongside constructions of “normative” and “able” bodies, as a cultural, social, and political force shaping the Jewish experience.

This course is appropriate for new students.