Center for Theoretical Inquiry in the Humanities

The Center for Theoretical Inquiry in the Humanities has recently been expanded upon its core reading group to activities including colloquia and speaker’s series and linked or otherwise associated graduate courses on fundamental theoretical issues concerning interpretation in the humanities. In the future, the Center hopes to fashion relevant undergraduate courses as well. Students are invited to peruse its website, and if you find the mission of the center to your liking, please join its listserv (instructions on joining are on the homepage), and participate in our reading groups and events.

To promote inter-departmental and interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching, students are invited to send us the number and topic of graduate courses you plan on teaching in the future that you feel embody the goals of the mission statement, which you can find on our homepage.  The Center is especially interested in courses that match its theme for academic year 2011/12: Technology. 

Again, if you wish to be made aware of Center and Reading Group events and schedules, please place yourself on our listserv and come participate when the theme and time is right.

For further information, please feel free to contact Mr. Bill Rasch at (wrasch@indiana.edu).

Spring 2011 Class: The Judeo-Spanish Diaspora and the Jews of the Middle East

Professor Matthias Lehmann

From the medieval to the modern periods, Sephardic Jews inhabited the frontier between the Christian and Islamic worlds, between Europe and the Middle East, between “West” and “East.”

This course will explore the history of the Mediterranean Diaspora of Judeo-Spanish communities that emerged in the wake of the Spanish expulsion in 1492, with a special focus on the Judeo-Spanish (Sephardic) communities in the Middle East and in North Africa.

The course will span the period from 1492 to the twentieth century, with a focus on the modern era. Topics explored will include Sephardic responses to the trauma of expulsion, the fate of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews converted to Christianity (the “Conversos” or “Marranos”), the rise of Ottoman Jewry, the transformation of Sephardic communities in the age of nationalism and European colonialism, the destruction of the Sephardic heartland in World War II, and the encounter of Sephardic Jews with Zionism and the State of Israel. Students will write short book reviews, give in-class presentations, and will write a final paper.