Course Descriptions

Term:

Spring Quarter (S22)

Dept/Description Course No., Title  Instructor
COM LIT (S22)100A  ARABS, JEWS, AND ARAB JEWSMOR, L.

CL100A: Arabs, Jews, and Arab Jews
Spring 2022
Liron Mor

Course description:

Arabs and Jews are often presented as having always been enemies. This interdisciplinary seminar questions this common assumption and challenges the stability of the two identity categories, Arabs and Jews. Given the long history of neighborly relations between Arabs and Jews—some of whom were themselves Arabs—what is it that separates Arabs and Jews? How and why were the two identities constructed as mutually exclusive? And what are the effects of such constructions today? the course explores these questions through a wide range of historical documents, academic writing, personal essays, memoirs, novels, short stories, television shows, visual art works, and cinema.

The course begins by examining the longer history of Arab-Jewish relations in the Middle East and the European construction of the two identities as both similar and distinct. It then turns to investigate “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and the ways in which Zionist thought attempted to redefine, separate, and secularize these identities. Finally, the course zeros in on the cultures and histories of Arab Jews—Jews who lived in, or originated from, the Arab world and saw themselves as integral to it. What does it mean to be both an Arab and a Jew? How are Arab Jews perceived and treated in a state that considers their very identity impossible? How might their intellectual and cultural traditions destabilize and refigure the definitions of “Arabs” and “Jews”?


Days: TU TH  02:00-03:20 PM

HISTORY (S22)130C  JEWS OF SPAINLEHMANN, M.

Spain was once home to the largest Jewish community in Europe. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Iberian Peninsula was a place of coexistence and conflict between Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Then, in 1492, as Spain was emerging as a unified state, defeated the last remaining Muslim kingdom on Iberian soil, and began to build its Atlantic empire, the Jews were expelled. Those Spanish Jews and their descendants, known as Sephardim, found new homes around the Mediterranean and along the Atlantic seaboard. They formed a diaspora within a diaspora – a unique Hispano-Jewish culture within the larger Jewish world – and formed a closely interconnected network, from Italy to North Africa, and from the Ottoman Empire to the Caribbean. This course will explore the history of the Sephardic Jews, from the beginnings in medieval Spain, the Inquisition, and the expulsion of 1492, to the emergence of a global diaspora in the early modern period, all the way to the disruptions and displacements of the age of colonialism, nationalism, and genocide in the twentieth century.
Days: TU TH  11:00-12:20 PM

HISTORY (S22)132H  SOC MOBILZTN ISRAELBURSTEIN, A.

This course applies the scholarship on collective action and social movements to the case of Israel, providing students with a comprehensive understanding of the social, religious, and ethnic conflicts that have shaped Israeli society and politics through a focus on the diverse movements that drove them. The course is divided into three parts: part one, Introduction to Social Movements and Contentious Politics, provides an overview of the theoretical foundations of social movement theory; part two, Israel: A Movement Society, explores the development of a range of movements which have shaped Israeli society since the pre-state era; and part three, Between War and Peace, involves an examination of the different types of mobilization that have developed around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Throughout the course students will be challenged to consider the shared patterns of mobilization reflected across cases, the connections between the development of Israeli social movements past and present, and the cumulative impact of the emergence of these movements on the shape of Israeli political institutions, governance and society. This course has no prerequisites, however students are expected to come to class having done the readings and prepared to actively engage in discussion.
Days: TU TH  11:00-12:20 PM

Courses Offered by the Jewish Studies Minor or other Schools at UCI

Spring Quarter (S22)

Dept Course No., Title   Instructor