Jewish Studies 237 - FORBDN LOVE:CINEM/DESIRE/ISRAE

How does film challenge social boundaries through narratives of forbidden love and intercultural relationships? By juxtaposing cultural and ideological worlds in conflict cinema has a long tradition of subverting the very rigid social restrictions it recreates on screen. Our course will focus on Israeli cinema to contemplate this universal phenomenon, with comparative segues into Hollywood?s re-visioning of racial and social divisions and its performance of the Jew on screen. We will explore various forms of taboo-breaking relationships, including interethnic love in the context of a multicultural immigrant society, transnational love in the context of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, homosexual love in the context of Middle Eastern traditional societies, and love that involves partners transcending religious boundaries. By studying how Israeli cinema crosses national, social, sexual, patriarchal, ethnic, and religious divisions we threaten to tear society apart. Open to students at all levels. (E)