Religion 331HB - Advanced Topics in Religion: 'The Human Body in Jewish Thought'

How have ancient and modern Jewish thinkers imagined the body, its purposes, and the diversity of embodied forms and experiences? In this course, students explore these themes through a range of textual case studies related to creation, ability and disability, appearance, gender and sexuality, aging, death, birth, and love. Through texts drawn from the full range of Jewish religious literature, we will also get to know some of the major Jewish textual corpora and the cultural contexts in which they developed. Throughout the course, we explore critiques of, engagements with, and renewals of these discourses from the perspective of contemporary feminist, Queer, and Disabled scholars.

Course limited to sophomores, juniors and seniors; Prereq: 8 credits in humanities.