Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: LITERATURE AND RELIGION

Department: English

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The figure of Jesus has inspired a certain amount of fascination in the modern Jewish imagination, serving as a symbol of political longing, the universality of suffering, and geographic and spiritual displacement. Why did the Christian messiah, who for most of Jewish history was a taboo or vilified character, fascinate so many Jewish writers, artists, and thinkers of the twentieth century? Beginning with background in ancient sources, this course will examine the development of modern Jewish historical, philosophical, literary, and artistic understandings of Jesus. We will discuss how Jewish thinkers and writers have viewed Jesus and Christianity, the various political and cultural interests and longings Jesus came to represent for them and why, for certain writers, Jesus became a potent symbol for thinking about Jewish experience.