Jewish refugees from Europe work in the fields in Sosua, a refugee colony in the Dominican Republic, ca 1943. Source: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jewish_refugees_work_in_the_fields_in_Sosua.jpg
This course examines the development of modern Jewish thought and practice with a particular focus on mobility and minorities / minoritization as well as historiography especially in the Global age of imperialism, colonialism and nationalism, anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust. The cultural, social, and political lives of Jews have undergone tremendous transformations and dislocations over the past two centuries—a period marked by innovation, tragedy, and success. This course emphasizes how traditional Jewish life changed when Jews were granted political equality, economic opportunity, and religious freedom, and how non-Jews responded to Jewish emancipation, migration, social mobility, and nationalism.
