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BTI Consortium | Last Updated November 14 - 9:00AM
JUDAIC STUDIES
School
Hebrew College
JTH838
Modern Jewish Thought
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA24
This course will explore the writings of major Jewish thinkers living in the modern era and place them in the context of their historical setting. The class will focus on the various ways these thinkers –from Mendelssohn to Buber –understood the dynamic relationship between inherited tradition and modern conceptions of religious life.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Dan Judson
R
11:30AM-1:00PM
Grading Option
Letter or PF for 2-credit option
Credits
0 or 2
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Prerequisites?
Y
Notes
N
School
Boston College Department of Theology
THEO5449-01
Jewish Liturgy: History and Theology
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA24
Embedded in rabbinic prayer is a concise statement of Jewish theology. After an examination of the precursors of rabbinic prayer and of the development of the synagogue as an institution, this course will examine the structures and ideas of the prayers themselves as they have been received from the medieval world. This will create a context for a deeper discussion of some key Jewish theological concepts as well as a comparison of Jewish and Christian liturgical traditions.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Langer
T
3-5:25p
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
3
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
UNDERGRAD/GRAD SPLIT
School
Boston University Graduate Program in Religion
CAS RN638
Philosophy and Mysticism: Jewish and Islamic Perspectives
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA24
A thematic introduction to mysticism and philosophy, with a focus on the dynamics of religious experience. Readings will be drawn from medieval Jewish and Islamic philosophy; Sufi mysticism and philosophy; Kabbalah, Sufi poetry, Hebrew poetry from the Golden Age of Muslim Spain.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Diana Lobel
TR
2:00pm-3:00PM
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
MA/PHD Split
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 1646
Jewish Religion and Politics in the 20th Century: Europe, America, and Israel
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA24
The history of Jewish politics and religion is a complex story. Since Jews lived most of their collective lives outside the normative politically sphere (empire, monarchy, nation-state etc.) there is a question whether Jews had a political tradition at all before modernity. The multi-volume The Jewish Political Tradition argues that indeed Jews thought deeply about politics and developed a variety of political traditions even though they were void of much political power. This course will begin with Political-Theological Treatise of the 17th century philosopher Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza and his notion of Judaism as a political religion, and then turn to Karl Marx�s famous essay �On the Jewish Question.� These seminal texts will be our frame to look at how later movements continued to engage the ideas raised in both Spinoza and Marx.We will then pick up the story a bit later � in the 20th century - when Jews became embedded in the political traditions in the U.S. and began to develop a political tradition of sovereignty in a Jewish national movement known as Zionism. Religion remained part of this political story in both overt and covert ways. This course will focus on political and religious radicalism, the figures and movements that offered radical political alternatives, both left and right, progressive and reactionary, ideological and social. The movements will cover the span of the 20th century from labor unions and Jewish communism and socialism in early 20th century America, to the Hebrew Canaanites, the new Religious Post-Zionists in the 21st century and the feminist and Queer revolutions in Judaism.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Magid, Shaul
T
01:00pm-02:59pm
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N
School
Hebrew College
JTH808
The Zohar
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA24
An introduction to the Jewish mystical tradition and the reading of its central text, the Zohar. Students will be taught the symbolic language of Kabbalah and will learn to read passages in the Aramaic original, but also using the new translation and commentary of the Pritzker edition.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Allen Lehmann
R
11:30AM-1:00PM
Grading Option
Letter, PF
Credits
2
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Prerequisites?
Y
Notes
A working knowledge of Talmudic Aramaic is required for this course.
School
Boston University Graduate Program in Religion
CAS RN628
Modern Judaism
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA24
Encounters between Judaism and modernity from the Renaissance and Reformation; the Spanish expulsion and creation of Jewish centers in the New World; emancipation and its consequences; assimilation, Reform Judaism, Zionism, the American Jewish community, non-European communities, Jewish global migration, and modern antisemitism.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Steven Katz
TR
12:30PM-1:45PM
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
MA/PHD Split
School
Boston University Graduate Program in Religion
CAS RN640
The Quran
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA24
The emergence of the Quran as a major religious text, its structure and literary features, its principle themes and places within the religious and intellectual life of the Muslim community.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Kecia Ali
TR
12:30PM-1:45PM
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
Y
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
MA/PHD Split
School
Harvard Divinity School
HDS 1648
Jewish Mysticism and Heresy: From Sabbateanism to Hasidism
BTI Category
Semester
Judaic Studies
FA24
Description:Mystical religion almost always challenges the normative religious tradition in which it is embedded. The focus on the subject, the experiential, and testing the elasticity of doctrinal or behavioral norms, mysticism in some way comes to define aspects of internal heretical positions. This is certainly the case in Judaism. From its appearance on the Middle Ages with the Zohar and later forms of kabbalistic teaching, the suspicion of heresy in mysticism was often a concern expressed by Judaism�s rabbinic elite. This concern was justified in the Sabbatean heresy in the 17th century where a false messiah Sabbatai Zvi shook the Jewish world with claims that redemption had arrived, and prophecy restored. Tragedy unfolded as Sabbatai converted to Islam and his followers developed a mystical messianic doctrine that necessitated his conversion. In its wake came two other messianic/mystical iterations, the heresy of Jacob Frank (1726-1791) and the emergence of Hasidism (late 18th century).This course will explore to nexus of mysticism and heresy in the Sabbatean movement and its aftermath, Frankism, and the rise of Hasidism. Through reading primary sources and scholarship, we will pay close attention to the underlying ways these movement contribute to the fear of heresy and expanding the boundaries of what constitutes heresy in Judaism. We will conclude with some readings on neo-Hasidism and its relationship to both Sabbateanism and Hasidism in a more pluralistic religious context.
Professor
Class Day & Time
Magid, Shaul
W
01:00pm-02:59pm
Grading Option
Letter, P/F, Audit
Credits
4
Online?
N
Professor Approval Req'd?
N
Prerequisites?
N
Notes
N
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