Graduate Proseminar in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies
NEJS 231a, Fall 2014
Tuesday 5:00-7:50pm
Instructor: Marc Brettler
Brettler@brandeis.edu
Lown 311, Phone: x 62968
Teaching Fellow: Celene Ayat Lizzio
Celene@Brandeis.edu
Office Hours by apt only:
Tuesday 12:50-1:50; 3:30-4:30
Office Hours by apt:
Tuesday 4:00-5:00
Course Description
This graduate seminar will focus on theoretical and critical texts of the humanities and
social sciences and their connection to various fields within Near Eastern and Judaic
Studies. These subject areas, ranging over several millennia and diverse geographical
areas, include Bible and Ancient Near East, Jewish Studies, Israel Studies, Islamic and
Middle East Studies, and Hebrew, Yiddish, Arabic, and other Near Eastern languages.
The course is intended for first-year master's and doctoral students, who will proceed to
acquire more specialized training in the various fields of NEJS.
Course Objectives
1. It seeks to familiarize you with some basic theoretical concepts and works outside of
NEJS that underlie scholarly works produced in NEJS. These theoretical works
touch on areas of history, religion, culture, language, literary and textual studies,
social and political science, law, education, and women's and gender studies.
Acquaintance with these works studies will complement and serve as a
foundation for the more specific, NEJS-related training that you will receive in
other parts of the graduate program.
2. You will further develop critical approaches to primary and secondary texts (in the
broadest sense of “texts”), learning how to synthesize and analyze the
arguments, premises, and assumptions of scholarly works.
3. You will make two presentations and develop further skills at oral presentation.
4. The writing assignments throughout the semester and in-class exercises will
introduce you to various aspects of academic writing and will hone your writing
skills.
5. This course will create an intellectual community of graduate students from different
disciplinary backgrounds.
Class Requirements
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1) Weekly analyses of articles you have read (50%)
Almost every week you will need to write and post for the entire class on Latte a 500750 word discussion on a scholarly article, essay or book chapter that utilizes the
method that we are covering in class. This posting should discuss the article in relation
to the method highlighted and the assigned readings. At least one of these postings
needs to be on material outside of your area of specialization. Your comments,
available to the entire class, should be professional and well-written. These are each
due by 8pm on Sunday, via Latte; late work will be penalized. See Latte for additional
details.
2) Comments on other students’ posting (10%)
You need to comment (200 words) ten times, on the posting of another student in class.
This is due by 5:00pm on the Monday before the class meets. Late work will be
penalized. Your comments, available to the entire class, should be professional and
well-written; see Latte for additional details.
3) Oral presentation (30%)
You will offer two presentations that connect the method under discussion to a reading
in your field. Your grade for these presentations will be based on their intellectual quality
and the effectiveness of your presentation, including your ability to summarize and
analyze the reading, your use of visual aids (powerpoints, prezis, handouts, etc.), and
your ability to engage the audience and field questions. Presentations will be 12-15
minutes and will be followed by Q &A for a total of 25 minutes. Within 24 hours after you
complete each presentation, you must write up for me what you believe the
presentation’s strengths and weaknesses were, noting what you would do differently if
you gave the presentation again (250 words); see Latte for additional details. I will send
you an evaluation of your presentations after I receive your self-evaluation.
4) Class participation (8%)
You are expected to ask and answer questions in class in a manner that reflects that
you have read and thought about the readings.
5) Office hours meeting (2%)
To help me get more of a sense of your interests, it is your responsibility to make an
appointment to talk with me before November 1 at a mutually convenient time. I will
only remind you of this once; it is your responsibility to follow through.
Please note that if you miss more than one class, your grade will be penalized. Late
work will also be penalized, although extensions, if requested in a timely manner, may
be granted for legitimate reasons. You are expected to fully and completely adhere to
the academic honesty policy of Brandeis.
Required Books
Please note: These books often are available in earlier, editions. Many of these are
different, and will not work for this class. It is your responsibility to compare editions,
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and to complete the assignment as assigned.
Robert Dale Parker, Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies. Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 2012.
Macey, David. The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory. Penguin Reference Books,
2002.
(Highly) Recommended books
•Michael Lambeck, ed., A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion, Second Edition.
Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008.
•Willard G. Oxtoby and Amir Hussain, World Religions: Western Traditions. Third
Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. (Sept. 16th Required Reading)
•John Lechte, Fifty Key Contemporary Thinkers: From Structuralism to PostHumanism. Second Edition. (Routledge Key Guides) New York: Routledge, 2007.
•Diana Hacker, A Writer’s Reference, Seventh Edition.
•Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, Eleventh
Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2014.
• John M. Swales and Christine B. Feak, Academic Writing for Graduate Students:
Essential Tasks and Skills. Third Edition.
• Susan M. Reinhart, Giving Academic Presentations, Second Edition. (Michigan Series
in English for Academic and Professional Purposes.) Ann Arbor, University of Michigan
Press, 2013.
•The Chicago Manual of Style (or purchase and learn to use on-line; see
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html ).
Weekly Class Structure
Each week, beginning with September 16th, will have a similar structure. We will begin
with a meal provided by the NEJS department. We will then have student presentations,
each followed by Q&A. We will then discuss the theory or method in the assigned
articles. The last block of class will look ahead to the theory and readings for the
following week.
Reading Assignments and Course Agenda
NOTE: All pdf documents listed below are available online through Latte.
September 2: Introduction
Course requirements
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Why is method important? Introduction to the modern study of culture.
September 9: Library Resources
We will meet in the Gardner Jackson room of the library with James Rosenbloom,
the Judaica librarian. This is a mandatory meeting.
September 16: Learning about the other traditions
The NEJS department is a broad department, covering the ancient Near East,
the Hebrew Bible, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, among other areas. Each of
you is likely interested and most knowledgeable in a particular area or two, but it
is important for this course, for collegiality, and for future employment that you
gain basic knowledge in the other areas as well. For this session, read the
following work:
Oxtoby, Willard G. and Hussain, Amir, eds. World Religions: Western Traditions,
2-320. I am willing to consider other books or combinations of books; please
email me in a timely manner with possible substitutions.
Post on Latte two points concerning a tradition that you are familiar with where
you feel the Oxtoby and Hussain textbook is deficient, and five questions that you
have about material that is new to you.
September 23: Brandeis Thursday, no class meeting
September 30: Anthropology of Religion
Lambeck, pp. 1-78 and 110-126 (Tylor, Durkheim, Weber, Geertz, and Asad)
Macey: “Critical theory,” “Critique,” “Discourse,” “Field,” and “Theory”
Saler, Benson. "Religion, Concept of." In Vocabulary for the Study of Religion.
Ed. Robert Segal and Kocku von Stuckrad. Leiden: E.J. Brill, forthcoming. [pdf]
NEJS-specific reading:
Kelner, Shaul. Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright
Tourism. New York: New York University Press, 2010. Read the preface through
page 108. [pdf]
Recommended: Graburn, Nelson H. H. “Secular Ritual: a General Theory of
Tourism.” Tourists and Tourism: a Reader, 2nd ed. Ed. Sharon B. Gmelch, 25-36.
Long Grove, Illinois. Waveland Press, Inc., 2009.
October 7: Language and the Social World: Structuralism, Myth, Ritual, Semiotics
Parker: 1-4, 37-47, 74-82 (Introduction, de Saussure, Lévi-Strauss)
Macey: “Claude Lévi-Strauss,” “Clifford Geertz,” “Ferdinand de Saussure,”
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“Structuralism,” “Bricolage,” “Thick-description,” “Philology,”
“Semiology/semiotics,” “Langue/parole,” “Semantic field,” “Sign,” “Metalanguage,”
“Speech act,” “Narratology,” and “Performative”
Douglas, Mary. “Powers and Dangers,” in Purity and Danger: An analysis of the
concepts of pollution and taboo. Routledge & Kegan Paul PLC, 1996. [pdf]
Langer, Susanne K. “Language and Thought.” Language Awareness: Readings
for College Writers. Eds. Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. 8th ed.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2000. 96-101. [pdf]
NEJS-specific readings:
Katz, Marion Holmes. Body of Text: The Emergence of the Sunni Law of Ritual
Purity. (SUNY series in Medieval Middle East History). Albany: State University
of New York, 2002. Read Ch. 1, pp. 29-57.
October 14: Historicism and Cultural Studies
Parker: pp. 477-507 (White, Foucault)
Macey: “Michel Foucault,” “Hannah Arendt,” “Stuart Hall,” “Hayden White,”
“Pierre Bourdieu,” “Habitus,” “Cultural studies,” “Archaeology of knowledge,”
“Archive,” “Discursive formation,” “Episteme,” “Genealogy,” “Subject,”
“Biopolitics,” “Repressive hypothesis,” “Grand narratives,” “Metanarratives,”
“Problematization,” “Hegemony,” and “Metahistory”
Foucault, Michel. “The Repressive Hypothesis,” The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1.
Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Random House, 1978. [pdf]
NEJS-specific readings:
King, Karen. "Which Early Christianity?" In The Oxford Handbook of Early
Christianity. Ed. Susan A. Harvey and David G. Hunter, 66-86. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2008. [pdf]
Azoulay, Ariella. “
Palestine as Symptom, Palestine as Hope: Revising Human
Rights Discourse
.” Critical Inquiry 40, no. 4 (2014): 332-364. [pdf]
October 21: Marxism, Nationalism, Identity
Parker: 379-388, 395-414, and 449-465 (Marx, Benjamin, Altusser, Williams)
Macey: “Carl Marx,” “Louis Althusser,” “Benedict Anderson,” “Max Weber,”
“Marxism,” “Historical materialism,” “Alienation,” “Mode of production,”
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“Base/superstructure,” “Commodity Fetishism,” “Culture industry,” “Ideology,”
“Ideological state apparatus,” and “Civil society”
Recommended: Lambeck: 48-56 (revisit: Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the
Sprit of Capitalism)
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and
Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 2006. Read the introduction, pp. 1-8. [pdf]
David, Ohad and Daniel Bar-Tal. “A Sociopsychological Conception of Collective
Identity: The Case of National Identity as an Example.” Personality and Social
Psychology Review 13, no. 4 (2009): 354-379. [pdf]
NEJS-specific readings:
Gottwald, Norman. The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours, (Society of
Biblical Literature Semeia Studies) Scholars’ Press, 1993. Read xv-xxix + 57-70.
[pdf]
October 28: New Criticism, Reader Response Criticism
Parker 1-19, 83-88, 263-269, 801-845 (Brooks, Barthes, Moi, Hall, Smith, Fish,
Bauman)
Macey: “Stanley Fish,” “Noam Chomsky,” “Paul Ricoeur,” “Roland Barthes,” “New
criticism,” “Hermeneutics,” “Practical criticism,” “Interpretive community,”
“Intentional fallacy,” and “Denotation/connotation”
NEJS-specific readings:
Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Narrative. Second Edition. New York: Basic
Books, 2011, 3-46. [pdf]
Recommended: Greenstein, Edward L. “Reading Pragmatically: Interpreting the
Binding of Isaac,” in Words, Ideas, Worlds: Biblical Essays in Honour of Yairah
Amit. Ed. Athalya Brenner and Frank H. Polak. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Phoenix
Press, 2012.
November 4: Phenomenology, Deconstruction, Poststructuralism
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Parker 89-119 and 145-158 (Nietzsche, Derrida, Barthes, Fuss, hooks)
Macey: “Friedrich Nietzsche,” “Edmond Husserl,” “Jean-Paul Sartre,” “Maurice
Merleau-Ponty,” “Jaques Derrida,” “Jacques Lacan,” “Julia Kristeva,”
“Phenomenology,” “Deconstruction,” “Postmodernism,” “Différence,”
“Existentialism,” “Logocentrism,” “Imaginary,” “Other,” “Death of the author,” and
“Intertextuality”
NEJS-specific readings:
Greenstein, Edward L. “Deconstruction and Biblical Narrative,” Prooftexts 9, no. 1
(1989): 43-77; reprinted in: Steven Kepnes, Interpreting Judaism in a
Postmodern Age (New York: New York University Press, 1996), pp. 21-54.
November 11: Psychoanalysis
Parker 181-193, 231-263, 314-326 (Freud, Mulvey, Irigaray, Wittig, Sedgwick)
Macey: “Sigmund Freud,” “Carl Jung,” Hélène Cixous,” “Luce Irigaray,”
“Psychoanalysis,” “Archetype, Catharsis,” “Unconscious,” “Collective
unconscious,” “Complex,” “Compulsion,” “Ego,” “Superego,” “Id,” “Hysteria,”
“Neurosis,” “Psychosis,” “Repression,” “Projection,” “Pleasure principle,” “Deathdrive,” “Phallus,” “Oedipus complex,” and “Psychoanalysis and feminism”
NEJS-specific reading:
Sigmund, Freud. Moses and Monotheism: Three Essays. Translated and edited
by James Strachey. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1974. Read “Moses an Egyptian” and other selections, pp. 1-16, 116132 [pdf]
Recommended: Miller, John. “Psychoanalytic Approaches to Biblical Religion.”
Journal of Religion and Health 22, no. 1 (1983), pp. 19-29.
Recommended: Friedman, R. Z. “Freud’s Religion: Oedipus and Moses,”
Religious Studies 34, no. 2 (1998): 135-149.
November 18 Feminism, Gender, the Body, and Queer Studies
Parker 283-313 and 327-364 (Rich, Butler, Nussbaum, McRuer)
Macey: “Simone de Beauvoir,” “Betty Friedan,” “Mary Daly,” “Judith Butler,” “bell
hooks,” “Feminism,” “Feminist criticism,” “Patriarchy,” “Sexism,” “Consciousness-
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raising,” “Women’s liberation,” “Gay,” “Queer,” “Gender,” “Identity politics,”
“Lesbian feminism,” “Radical feminism,” “Socialist feminism,” and “Womanist”
NEJS-specific reading:
Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard, ed., People of the Body: Jews and Judaism from an
Embodied Perspective. Albany, State University of New York, 1992. Read pages
1-46. Consider choosing any other additional chapter in this volume to read for
your weekly summary and/or presentation. [pdf]
Nissinen, Martti. “Are There Homosexuals in Mesopotamian Literature?” Journal
of the American Oriental Society 130, no. 1 (2010): 73-77. [pdf]
Highly Recommended: Fuchs, Esther, ed. Israeli Feminist Scholarship: Gender,
Zionism, and Difference (Jewish Life, History, and Culture) Austin: University of
Texas, 2014. Consider choosing a chapter in this volume to read for your weekly
summary and/or presentation.
November 25: No class (away at a conference)
December 2: Postcolonial and Race Studies
Parker 627-718, 269-282, and 740-747 (Fanon, Bhabha, Spivak, Mohanty, Said,
hooks, Gates)
Macey: “Frantz Fannon,” “Homi K. Bhaba,” “Edward Said,” “Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak,” “Henry Louis Gates Jr.,” “postcolonial theory,” “Eurocentrism,”
“ethnocentrism,” “Orientalism,” “diasporas,” “hybridity,” “dead white European
males,” and “subaltern studies”
Highly Recommended: Suzanne Marchand, German Orientalism in the Age of
Empire: Religion, Race, and Scholarship. Cambridge / New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2009.
Recommended: Lambeck, pp. 464-478 (Comaroff and Comaroff)
NEJS-specific readings:
Said, Edward W. “The Myth of ‘The Clash of Civilizations,’” (Transcript from
1998) Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation, 2005. [pdf]
___. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978. Read ch. 1, pp. 29-49.
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Zine, Jasmine. “Between Orientalism and Fundamentalism: The Politics of
Muslim Women’s Feminist Engagement,” Muslim World Journal of Human Rights
3, no. 1 (2006): 1-24. [pdf]
Dec 9 at 5 PM (make-up class): Religion and the Public Sphere
Lambeck 509-518 and 544-559 (Bellah, Hirchkind)
Macey: “Fundamentalism”
Weitzman, Steven P. Religious Studies and the FBI: Adventures in Academic
Interventionism.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81, no. 4 (2013):
959–995. [pdf]
NEJS-specific readings:
Brettler, Marc. “Biblical Views” column in Biblical Archeology Review (Sept./Oct.
2013): p. 26 and 75. Recommended: browse the website thetorah.com,
especially Waxman, Chaim. “Why Now? Toward a Sociology of Knowledge
Analysis of TheTorah.com,” available online at: http://thetorah.com/toward-asociology-of-knowledge-analysis-of-thetorahcom/
Woocher, Jonathan S. “Sacred Survival: American Jewy’s Civil Religion,”
Judaism 34, no. 2 (1985): 151-162. [pdf]
Toulouse, Mark G. God In Public: Four Ways American Christianity and Public
Life Relate. London: Westminster John Knox Press, Read ch. 7 “Faith and Public
Life in a Postmodern Context,” pp. 167-194.
Asad, Talal. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. (Cultural
Memory in the Present) Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. Read
introduction, pp. 1-17. [pdf] (Other chapters are highly recommended.)