Summer 2003
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For summer 2003, OSJS offers six short courses in Jewish history, culture, and religion taught by visiting faculty. With four or eight meetings of two hours and twenty minutes, the courses provide a focused approach to a topic in Judaic studies. By taking a combination of courses, one gains a cross-section of significant recent scholarship in Judaic studies.
Environmental Ethics and Judaism Environmental Missues raise fundamental moral and religious questions about human purpose and responsibility in the world. Using the Bible, Jewish religious texts, and contemporary writings, we explore Jewish perspectives on environmental ethics in the context of consumption and waste, food, global climate change and extinction, sense of place/bioregionalism, and bioengineering. Readings and discussions offer diverse perspectives on the role of humans in relation to God and nature, responsibility toward other species, and balancing human needs with ecological health. Shamu Fenyvesi taught environmental studies in Massachusetts and Oregon and directed the Teva Learning Center in Connecticut before beginning doctoral studies in education at PSU. He has published on Jewish environmental ethics in Orion, Tikkun, and Ecology and the Jewish Spirit and has led Jewish wilderness trips for adults and children. Jewish Music of the Shul, Stage, and Street A nostalgic overview of Jewish music in the late 19th and 20th centuries, especially as captured in recordings. Topics include folk music, synagogue music, music from the Yiddish theater, instrumental music (klezmer), and music of Sephardic and Eastern European Jewish communities. The course is for anyone with an interest in Jewish music. No musical knowledge required. Profusely illustrated with recorded (and some film) examples. Norm Cohen (PhD, UC Berkeley) taught the history of American folk music, including bluegrass, country, and Anglo-American folksong, at UCLA, Lewis & Clark College, and Portland Community College. His book, Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong, won the American Folklore Society Botkin Prize and the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award. He produced Minstrels and Tunesmiths, Grammy nominee for best historical album. Demystifying the Dead Sea Scrolls The popular media portrays the Dead Sea Scrolls as texts shrouded in mystery. As a consequence their true importance is little understood by the wider public, especially their intimate connection to the Hebrew Bible as we know it today. After providing a basic introduction to the Scrolls, the course examines how they grew from the Hebrew Bible and interpreted in surprisingly familiar and strange ways its stories, laws, poetry, sermons, and wisdom. Rob Kugler is the Paul S. Wright Professor of Christian Studies at Lewis & Clark College. He has published several books and numerous articles relating to the Dead Sea Scrolls and is presently authoring a volume on the use of the Book of Leviticus in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Reading/Writing American Jewish Poetry We read the work of contemporary American Jewish poets and essays on their poetry to explore the variety of the genre and what it means to place a particular poet or poem in the genre. Discussions address how to determine essential qualities of American Jewish poetry. We also write our own poems as a means of exploring these issues. Raphael Dagold (MFA, University of Oregon) is a poet and teacher at Lewis & Clark College, Mt. Hood Community College, University of Oregon, Temple Beth Israel, and Writers-in-the-Schools. His work has appeared in Indiana Review, Washington Square, Shirim, Bridges, and other journals. His awards include honorable mention in the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award for poems on the Jewish experience. Jews and Conversos in Spanish History The so-called Golden Age of Spanish Jewry ended with the Inquisition, conversion, and expulsion in 1492. Covering medieval Sephardim, new Christians or conversos, and the role of Jews in exile, the course examines Spain's rich Jewish history, including Spain's little-known role facilitating the flight of Jews from the Nazis. Matthew Warshawsky (PhD, Ohio State University) teaches Spanish language and culture at the University of Portland. His research is on the literature of 17th-century Spanish new Christians and the Sephardic diaspora beyond the Iberian Peninsula. Israeli/Palestinian Women's Voices: Short Stories The oral tradition of storytelling and the writing of short stories give voice to the lives of Palestinian and Israeli women, lives often absent from standard histories and media accounts. Through selected stories, the course examines the themes of family and community, homeland and identity. From immigrant roots, Bahar Jaberi (MA English) works on the literature of diaspora and exile by American immigrant writers and on the British postcolonial writers of India. At PSU, she has offered the courses Arab-American Immigrant Literature and The Literature of Salman Rushdie and co-taught first- and second-year Farsi. |
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