Ghetto, Shtetl, and Beyond: Millennium of History & Society of Yiddish (3 cr)
Dov-Ber Kerler
GER-E 352 #31082 / CMLT-C 378 #31214 / GER-Y 506 #31122 Topics in Yiddish Culture
MW 4:00-6:15 (BH347)
2nd 8 week course
CASE A&H; credit given for only one of GER-E 352 or CMLT-C 378 with same topic.
This course will offer a survey of history and sociology of Yiddish since its inception about a thousand years ago. Its main objectives are to encourage and stimulate the students to develop a nuanced historical and socio-cultural perception of pre-modern Ashkenazi culture (originating in late medieval France and German-speaking lands) in which Yiddish played a major role as the language of everyday communication, traditional education and Torah study, popular literature and public entertainment and performing arts, as well as the late 19th century emergence of modern Yiddish literature, theater, and the subsequent rise of modern Yiddish culture encompassing arts, education, mass communication, political movements, and public involvement with social reform.
