Programs Offered

Certificate

The Program in Jewish Studies, which is open to all students of all backgrounds, Jewish and non-Jewish, explores Jewish culture, history, religion, society, and thought from a broad, interdisciplinary perspective, training graduate students for diverse career paths. 

With a faculty of engaged scholars and teachers working in fields across the humanities, arts, and social sciences, the Program supports the research, teaching, and professional development of graduate students pursuing a master's or doctoral degree in a diverse and growing array of departments, including history, religious studies, English, Germanic and Slavic languages and literature, linguistics, art and art history, and critical media practices. Students receive intensive mentoring through the graduate colloquium, and/or to complete a graduate certificate.

Course code for this program is JWST.

Faculty

While many faculty teach both undergraduate and graduate students, some instruct students at the undergraduate level only. For more information, contact the faculty member's home department.

Boyd, Samuel L.
Associate Professor; PhD, University of Chicago

Goodman, Nan
Professor; PhD, Harvard University

Kalisman, Hilary Falb
Endowed/Named Professor; PhD, University of California, Berkeley

Malin, Jonathan
Associate Professor; PhD, University of Chicago

Mehta, Samira
Assistant Professor, Director, Associate Faculty Director; PhD, Emory University; MDiv, Harvard University

Rivlin, Eyal Ofer
Teaching Associate Professor, Endowed/Named Professor; MA, Naropa Institute

Wartell, Rebecca
Teaching Assistant Professor; PhD, Monash University

Weber, Beverly Marie
Professor; PhD, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Courses

JWST 5200 (3) Religion and Reproductive Politics in the United States

Focuses primarily on how Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish conversations about sexuality and reproduction have shaped access and attitudes towards reproductive health in the US over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: WGST 4200, JWST 4200, WGST 5200

JWST 5348 (3) Graduate Topics in Jewish History

Covers topics in Jewish history from biblical beginnings to present day. Topics vary each semester.

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 6.00 total credit hours. Allows multiple enrollment in term.

JWST 5378 (3) Jews in and of the Middle East

Examines the modern history and culture of Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa; Jews' and Muslims' encounters with empire, westernization and nationalism; representations of Sephardi and Eastern Jews; Jewish-Muslim relations in Europe and the U.S.; and contact and conflict between Jews and Muslims in (and about) Israel/Palestine. Sources include memoirs, newspapers and films.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: HIST 4378, JWST 4378, and HIST 5378
Requisites: Restricted to graduate students only.

JWST 5800 (3) Ethics, Medicine and the Holocaust: Legacies in Health and Society

Engages the disturbing fact that German health care professionals actively participated in the architecture and machinery of the Third Reich; explores the implications of these facts for contemporary health care ethics; expands beyond the Holocaust to consider the ramifications for our understanding of the problem of evil in general.

Equivalent - Duplicate Degree Credit Not Granted: JWST 4800
Grading Basis: Letter Grade

JWST 5900 (1-6) Graduate Independent Study in Jewish Studies

Working with a faculty member in Jewish Studies on an independent study research project provides graduate students with an opportunity to learn outside the formal classroom structure with individual direction from Jewish Studies faculty on a topic of mutual interest not offered in regularly scheduled classes. (Independent study may not be used to substitute for a regular course not being offered in a given term).

Repeatable: Repeatable for up to 6.00 total credit hours. Allows multiple enrollment in term.
Grading Basis: Letter Grade