NES 2532

Judaism and Gender

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2023-2024.

Why study Judaism and gender together? As a minority culture for most of its history and in most of its geographical areas, Judaism interacted with gender formation in the majority culture in a number of surprising ways. Jews sometimes used religion to modify gender norms, and gender to modify religious norms. Gender was at play in Jewish negotiation of social class, racial status, ethnic status, and even citizenship. In different societies, Jews used gendered religion, and religious gender, to achieve assimilation, or to protect against it. Judaism also contains a strongly gendered tradition of texts and practices, and this tradition pulls Jewish gender in its own directions. Judaism will therefore serve as a kind of incubator, a framework in which to carefully examine the intersections of gender, religion, sexuality, race, and class. We will use these insights to reflect back on theories of gender, thinking about how Jewish gender changes our understanding of gender as a whole.

When Offered Fall.

Breadth Requirement (GHB)
Distribution Category (CA-AS, SCD-AS)
Course Attribute (CU-ITL)

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