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Description
Few chapters in all of history are as dramatic鈥攂oth tragic and spectacular--as modern Jewish history. The apparent success of Jewish emancipation was challenged by popular and religious non-Jewish opposition, and efforts among Jews to control or turn back such changes. No matter what, Judaism and Jews did not stand still. Antisemitism gained traction as reactionary utopia, along with the persistence of traditional prejudice and discrimination. Against this background there arose a variety of Jewish ideologies, including:
- Modern Orthodoxy
- Reform Judaism
- Zionism
- Territorialism
- Variants of socialism
- "Ultra" orthodoxies
- National extremism
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Jewish life changed radically, and European Jewry came close to being totally wiped out in the Holocaust. Since the late eighteenth century, Jews had sought new ways to think about and live in the modern world. Numerous individuals of Jewish origin took the lead in attempting to understand the changes wrought by modernity鈥攊ncluding:
- Karl Marx
- Sigmund Freud
- Theodor Herzl
- Bertha Pappenheimer
- Emma Goldman
- Hannah Arendt
- Walter Benjamin
- Susan Sontag
- Philip Roth
Expressions of cultural interpretation and creativity including Jewish literature and film will be featured in the module. This is an introductory module that does not assume any previous experience with the subject.
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 8th April 2024.
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