UW Bothell Course Descriptions
UW Tacoma Course Descriptions
Glossary
Detailed course offerings (Time Schedule) are available for
JEW ST 130 Justice, Service, and Activism in the Jewish Tradition (5) SSc, DIV
Focuses on thinking critically about justice and social activism by integrating classroom and community learning. Uses the rich textual tradition of Judaism and the experiences of American Jewish social activists as a prism for considering the possibilities and challenges of pursing social justice around the globe.
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JEW ST 145 Introduction to Judaism (5) SSc
Explores Judaism's sacred texts, holidays, and beliefs. Addresses Judaism's impact on society, culture, and politics. Through the lens of the Jewish experience, grapples with fundamental questions about the role of individuals and members of larger communities in an increasingly multicultural, religious, and interconnected world. Offered: jointly with RELIG 145.
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JEW ST 175 Popular Film and the Holocaust (5) A&H, DIV
Introduces films about the Holocaust with particular emphasis on popular films. Develops the requisite tools for analyzing films, a historical perspective of the Holocaust, and the problems involved in trying to represent a historical event whose tragic dimensions exceed the limits of the imagination. Offered: jointly with GERMAN 195.
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JEW ST 199 Study Abroad: Jewish Studies (1-5, max. 15) SSc
For articipants in study abroad program. Specific course content varies. Courses do not automatically apply to major/minor requirements.
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JEW ST 206 Violence and Contemporary Thought (5) SSc, DIV
Modern and contemporary ideas about violence and their emergence as intellectual responses to historical events. Topics may include histories of physical violence, such as slavery, colonialism, or the Holocaust, as well as structural forms of violence. Offered: jointly with CHID 206/HSTCMP 206; AS.
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JEW ST 210 Funny Jews: Jewish Humor and American Identity (5) A&H
Jewish humor plays an important role in American popular culture. Investigates the modern history of Jewish humor through the writers, comedians, and actors who have shaped American comedy. Discusses the purpose of humor and the role that Jewish humor plays in shaping American and American Jewish identity.
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JEW ST 215 Ladino Language and Culture (5) SSc/A&H
Fundamental elements of Modern Ladino, the traditional language of Sephardic Jews of the Balkans and Middle East, including the traditional Hebrew-based alphabet and its Romanization, and basic grammar, syntax and lexicon. Historical stages in the development of Ladino and the social and cultural life of modern Ladino speakers. No prior knowledge of Spanish or Hebrew required.
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JEW ST 250 Introduction to Jewish Cultural History (5) SSc
Introductory orientation to the settings in which Jews have marked out for themselves distinctive identities as a people, a culture, and as a religious community. Examines Jewish cultural history as a production of Jewish identity that is always produced in conversation with others in the non-Jewish world. Offered: jointly with HSTCMP 250.
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JEW ST 258 Introduction to Rabbinic Literature (5) SSc/A&H
Investigates the origins of Judaism through the works of the rabbis. The Judaism that prevails today arose after the Romans' destruction of the temple in Palestine in 70 CE. Discusses the rabbinic movement, its writings, and its Greco-Roman as well as Babylonian-Persian context. Offered: W.
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JEW ST 269 The Holocaust: History and Memory (5) SSc, DIV
Explores the Holocaust as crucial event of the twentieth century. Examines the origins of the Holocaust, perpetrators and victims, and efforts to come to terms with this genocide in Europe, Israel, and the United States. Offered: jointly with HSTCMP 269.
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JEW ST 270 Race, Religion, and Migration in Global Context (5) SSc, DIV
Migration of "Middle Easterners" - Jews, Christians, and Muslims - from the Ottoman Empire to the United States in the twentieth century. How their experiences shaped, and were shaped by, the development of racial categories, definitions of citizenship and national belonging, and broader political, religious, and cultural dynamics linking the Mediterranean world to the Americas. Offered: jointly with HSTCMP 270.
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JEW ST 289 Special Topics in Jewish Studies (1-5, max. 15) SSc
Topics vary.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 289
JEW ST 295 The Contributions of German Jews to German Culture (5) SSc/A&H, DIV
Contribution, assimilation, and alienation of German-speaking Jews - such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Franz Kafka - emphasizing the multi-cultural nature of that which is understood as "German culture." Offered: jointly with GERMAN 295.
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JEW ST 312 Jewish Literature: Biblical to Modern (5) SSc/A&H, DIV
A study of Jewish literature from Biblical narrative and rabbinic commentary to modern prose and poetry with intervening texts primarily organized around major themes: martyrdom and suffering, destruction and exile, messianism, Hasidism and Enlightenment, Yiddishism and Zionism. Various critical approaches; geographic and historic contexts. Offered: jointly with ENGL 312.
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JEW ST 317 From Israelites to Jews: the First Six Centuries BCE (3) A&H/SSc
Traces the Israelites, from the Babylonian destruction of the Jerusalemite Temple (586 BCE) to events following the destruction of the second Temple (first century CE). Focuses on primary historical and literary sources as well as archaeological and artistic evidence. No knowledge of Hebrew or the Bible required. Offered: jointly with MELC 307.
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JEW ST 318 Jewish Life in Literature and Film (5) A&H/SSc
Major themes of Jewish life treated in modern narrative and cinema. Topics include religious tradition and modernity. Jewish immigration to America, responses to the Holocaust and Zionism. Offered: jointly with MELC 317.
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JEW ST 324 Food Cultures, Race, and Identity in the Hispanic and Sephardic Worlds (3) SSc, DIV
Food cultures and practices and their intersections with the construction of racial or racialized identities in the Hispanic and Sephardic worlds. Addresses issues of diversity through examining the role of food in creating power differentials and racialized identities. Food practices in the Hispanic and Sephardic worlds in a broad geographic area and time period. Offered: jointly with GEOG 374/SPAN 325.
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JEW ST 325 Contemporary Judaism in a Global Context (5) SSc
Explores the dynamic interactions between contemporary social, political, and intellectual forces and today's changing religious landscape. Critical analysis of the ways n which religious ideologies and communities transform themselves in relationship to geographical contexts and historical processes. Examines Jews and Judaism as a lens for considering changes to religious life.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 325
JEW ST 330 The Sages: Foundations of Classical Judaism (5) SSc
Investigates the origins and foundation of classical Judaism by the Jewish sages (AKA the rabbis) in the context of the Bible's completion, the Romans' destruction of Jerusalem, and the emergence of Christianity. Discusses the rise of the rabbis, their stories and laws, and their Greco-Roman as well as babylonian-persian context. Offered: W.
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JEW ST 336 American Jewish History Since 1885 (5) SSc
Political, social, economic, religious history of American Jewish community from great eastern European migration to present. Integration of immigrant community into general American community; rise of nativism; development of American socialism; World War I and II; and reactions of American Jews to these events. Offered: jointly with HSTAA 336.
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JEW ST 337 The Holocaust and American Life (5) SSc, DIV
In most accounts, "the Holocaust" is told as a European story, but it was also transatlantic. Incorporates film, literature, journalism, social scientific writing, diaries, court cases, and other primary sources to examine how events in Europe affected and were affected by developments in United States history. Offered: jointly with HSTAA 337.
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JEW ST 339 Bioethics: Secular and Jewish Perspectives (3) SSc, DIV
Legal, ethical, scientific, and Jewish religious perspectives on contemporary medical and biomedical research practices. Legal and civil rights of women, people with disabilities, minors and minority or marginalized groups. Key differences between secular and Biblical/Rabbinic approaches in interpretation, analysis and application of bioethics, doctor-patient relationships; reproductive methods; abortion; euthanasia; and stem cell research. Offered: jointly with B H 339/MELC 328.
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JEW ST 340 Modern Yiddish Literature: The Worlds of East European Jews (5) A&H
Examines modern Yiddish literature from its origins in the Russian Empire's western borderlands (today's Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania) to its responses to ruptures of the twentieth century: world wars, revolutions, and the Holocaust. Written in the diasporic and stateless language of East European Jews, Yiddish literature deals with migration, ethnic violence, challenges to religious customs, gender norms, sexualities. Readings in English. Offered: jointly with SLAVIC 340.
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JEW ST 358 Jewish Thought (5) SSc
Explores the historical context of major shifts in modern Jewish thought. Topics include the impact of the Enlightenment, Emancipation, the Holocaust, and the founding of the State of Israel on conceptions of Jewish theology, identity, and religious practice. Offered: jointly with HSTCMP 368; Sp.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 358
JEW ST 359 Jewish American Literature and Culture (5) SSc/A&H
Literature, film, graphic novels, and other cultural artifacts that pertain to experiences of Jews in the United States in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. How questions of immigration, assimilation, identity, religious expression, gender, sexuality, race, intergenerational trauma, and memory have been and continue to be represented by American Jewish writers, comedians, filmmakers, and other culture-makers.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 359
JEW ST 360 Jews, Greeks, and Romans in the Ancient World (5) A&H
Examines the interactions between populations of Jews, Greeks, and Romans in the ancient Mediterranean from the late Bronze Age through the early Talmudic period, informed by perspectives from literature (religious and secular), art, and archaeology. Offered: jointly with CLAS 360.
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JEW ST 362 Food and Community: Cultural Practices in the Hispanic World (5) SSc, DIV
Intersections of food and community in Hispanic cultures. Past and present practices. Food and material culture, urban design, foodways and gender roles, food and race, diet and hygiene, religious, and civic celebrations, and food preparation techniques. Offered: jointly with GEOG 373/SPAN 362; S.
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JEW ST 367 Medieval Jewish History (5) SSc
Social and intellectual history of the Jews in western Europe to the fifteenth century. Jews under Islam and Christianity; the church and the Jews; the Crusades and their legacy; intellectual achievements; conflict and cooperation. Offered: jointly with HSTAM 367.
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JEW ST 368 Modern European Jewish History (5) SSc, DIV
Surveys European Jewish history from the Spanish expulsion (1492) to World War I (1914). Considers diversity of European Jewryies and the factors that cohered them. Examines how European Jewries ordered their lives, shaped gender and class norms, and interacted with the societies in which they lived. Offered: jointly with HSTEU 368.
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JEW ST 369 The Jewish Twentieth Century in Film (5) A&H/SSc, DIV
Surveys twentieth-century Jewish history in its European, American, and Middle Eastern contexts by examining films produced in these settings. Considers central events that shaped modern Jewish culture: the changing geography of Europe and the Middle East, mass migrations, the Holocaust, shifting meanings of race, culture, and religion. Offered: jointly with HSTCMP 369.
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JEW ST 377 The American Jewish Community (5) SSc, DIV
Examines how American Jews adapt to a changing world. Explores impact of diverse immigration, acculturation, social mobility, social justice movements, and changing relations between Jews and non-Jews. Encompasses concerns that all communities have adapting to change, when they are also agents of change. Offered: jointly with SOC 377.
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JEW ST 378 Contemporary Jewish American Identities (5) SSc, DIV
Introduction to the debates about post-Holocaust Jewish identities in multicultural America. Explores whether a distinctive Jewish community is headed toward assimilation, experiencing revival, or merely transforming the multiple ways Jewish experience is lived. Topics include new Jewish immigrants, the new Orthodox, Black Jews, Jewish feminism, children of Holocaust survivors. Offered: jointly with SOC 378.
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JEW ST 379 Doing Jewish Identity Studies (5) SSc
Involves the student in researching the diverse Jewish identities of young people today. Includes background reading on Jewish identities in the United States; interviewing young Jewish adults; transcribing and interpreting interviews; and crafting a qualitative research paper. Covers research skills, as well as sensitivity to Jewish community values and concerns.
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JEW ST 399 Study Abroad - Jewish Studies (1-5, max. 15) SSc
For participants in study abroad program. Specific course content varies. Courses do not automatically apply to major/minor requirements.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 399
JEW ST 418 Jewish Philosophy (5) SSc
Introduces the central concepts and themes of Jewish philosophy. Focuses either on debates within a particular historical period - e.g., medieval or modern; or on a topic - e.g., reactions to the Enlightenment or to the Holocaust. Offered: jointly with PHIL 418.
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JEW ST 427 Russian Jewish Experience (5) A&H/SSc, DIV
Examines the experience of Russian Jews from the late 19th century to the present through fiction, films, memoirs, graphic novels set during the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalinism, the Holocaust, the Cold War, the post-Soviet era. Explores issues of identity, gender, class, place of Jews as individuals and as a minority within Russian & Soviet society, as well as Jewish-Russian emigration to USA, Israel and elsewhere at the turn of the 21st century. Offered: jointly with RUSS 427; A.
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JEW ST 438 Jewish Women in Contemporary America (5) SSc, DIV
Examines how Jewish women's identities are socially constructed and transformed in contemporary America, using social histories, memoirs, and ethnographies to analyze scholars' approaches to Jewish women's lives. Topics include the role of social class, religion, migration, the Holocaust, and race relations in Jewish women's lives. Offered: jointly with GWSS 438.
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JEW ST 459 History of Jewish-Muslim Relations (5) SSc, DIV
Topics include Jews' and Muslims' linked encounters with empire, westernization, and nationalism; Jewish culture and identity in Islamic contexts migration and diasporic identities; the impact of Zionism, European Jewish settlement in Palestine, and the State of Israel on Jewish-Muslim relations in the Middle East and beyond; Islamophobia and antisemitism. Offered: jointly with HSTAFM 459.
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JEW ST 460 Sephardic Culture before 1492 (5) A&H/SSc
Explores Sephardic art. Music, food, film, literature, citizenship and nationhood, identity, and the origins of ladino, among other topics. Taught in English. Offered: jointly with SPAN 460; W.
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JEW ST 462 Anti-Semitism As a Cultural System (5) SSc, DIV
Comparative study of various anti-Semitic cultural systems from ancient to modern times. Topics include how anti-Semitism can be defined as a cultural phenomenon; the conditions that explain the circulation of anti-Semitic traditions in a given society; the conditions under which social conflict with Jews becomes anti-Semitism.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 462
JEW ST 463 Enlightenment, Emancipation, Antisemitism: History of the Jews, 1770-1914 (5) SSc, DIV
The Jewish experience in the modern world from the European Enlightenment to the First World War. Focus on the debates surrounding Jewish emancipation, the reception of Jews within European society, modern antisemitism, nationalist movements, mass migration, and war.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 463
JEW ST 465 The Jews of Eastern Europe (5) SSc
Jewish society in Poland, Russia, the Hapsburg Lands, and Romania from the late Middle Ages to the Holocaust. Offered: jointly with HSTEU 465.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 465
JEW ST 466 The Sephardic Diaspora: 1492-Present (5) SSc, DIV
Examines the history and culture of Sephardic Jewry from the expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492 to the present. Explores the creation of Sephardic communities in the Dutch and Ottoman Empires, Western Europe, the Americas, and Africa, and the history of the conversos and "hidden Jews." Offered: jointly with HSTCMP 469.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 466
JEW ST 468 The Jews in Spanish History (5) SSc
Sephardic Jews in Spanish politics, economy, and culture, emphasizing the medieval Golden Age and the Inquisition. Offered: jointly with HSTEU 464.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 468
JEW ST 490 Advanced Topics in Jewish Studies (1-5, max. 15) SSc
Content varies.
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JEW ST 491 Seminar: Topics and Issues in Judaism (5) SSc
Topics vary.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 491
JEW ST 495 Seminar in Jewish Studies (5) SSc
History of Jewish Studies as an organized field of academic inquiry. Explores the implications for Jewish Studies of its present setting within the context of the humanities and the social sciences.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 495
JEW ST 530 The Sages: Foundations of Classical Judaism (5)
Investigates the origins and foundation of classical Judaism by the Jewish sages (AKA the rabbis) in the context of the Bible's completion, the Romans' destruction of Jerusalem, and the emergence of Christianity. Discusses the rise of the rabbis, their stories and laws, and their Greco-Roman as well as babylonian-persian context. Offered: W.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 530
JEW ST 539 Bioethics: Secular and Jewish Perspectives (5)
Explores legal, ethical, scientific, and Biblical-Rabbinic & contemporary religious perspectives on contemporary medical and biomedical research practices. Review of key differences between secular and Jewish approaches in interpretation, analysis and application of bioethics. The topics include: doctor-patient relationships; reproductive methods; abortion; euthanasia; and stem cell research. Offered: jointly with B H 539.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 539
JEW ST 558 Jewish Thought (5)
Explores the historical context of major shifts in modern Jewish thought. Topics include the impact of the Enlightenment, Emancipation, the Holocaust, and the founding of the State of Israel on conceptions of Jewish theology, identity, and religious practice. Offered: jointly with HSTCMP 568; Sp.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 558
JEW ST 559 History of Jewish-Muslim Relations (5)
Topics include Jews' and Muslims' linked encounters with empire, westernization, and nationalism; Jewish culture and identity in Islamic contexts migration and diasporic identities; the impact of Zionism, European Jewish settlement in Palestine, and the State of Israel on Jewish-Muslim relations in the Middle East and beyond; Islamophobia and antisemitism. Offered: jointly with HSTAFM 559.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 559
JEW ST 569 The Sephardic Diaspora: 1492-Present (5)
Examines the history and culture of Sephardic Jewry from the expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492 to the present. Explores the creation of Sephardic communities in the Dutch and Ottoman Empires, Western Europe, the Americas, and Africa, and the history of the conversos and "hidden Jews." Offered: jointly with HSTCMP 569.
View course details in MyPlan: JEW ST 569
