2nd 8 weeks only

This course will give a survey of the history and culture of the
Jews in Spain, known as the Sephardi Jews, from the Middle Ages to
the present. The first half of the course will deal with the Jews of
medieval Spain under Muslim and Christian rule through the expulsion
of 1492 and the Spanish Inquisition. The second half of the course
will present the experience of the Spanish-Jewish diaspora in the
Mediterranean and the Atlantic world. The class will conclude with a
discussion of the role of Sephardi Jews in modern Israel and the
United States. Topics include the “golden age” of medieval Spain,
the Spanish Inquisition and the Marranos, the early modern Spanish-
Jewish diaspora from Ottoman Turkey to the Caribbean, the Sephardi
encounter with modernity, Zionism, and European colonialism, the
destruction of Sephardi communities in the Holocaust. There will be
a mid-term exam in the fourth week of this eight-week course, a
final exam, and three short 2-page papers.