The Jews in Spain: History, Heritage and Memory

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The course proposes an itinerary through he rich cultural heritage of Hispanic Jews to present day along with interpretative elements to understand the recovery of that heritage and to manage it by analyzing the history of the Jewish people in the Hispanic lands and the interrelations, connections and influences between the Hispanic societies and Judaism, from the Middle Ages to present day. This is a course of history with a distinct interdisciplinary approach. A general contextual overview and an itinerary through the history of the Jews in Spain frame the discussions to follow.

The aim is to delve around a series of selected themes to better understand the boundaries between Spanish Jews and Spanish gentiles from multiple perspectives and across time. Based on the in-class commentary and analysis of primary sources, film debates and case studies, specific topics will be examined:  the perception of the self and the perception of the other; the shaping of a Jewish identity in the Hispanic lands versus the creation of the “Sephardic” cultural construct; the representations of Jews and Judaism; the role played by archetypes in the views on Judaism and Spanish anti-Semitism; and in Modern and contemporary times, the reconfiguration of Jewish identity from Modern Crypto-Judaism to the rising phenomenon of the Sephardic Benei Anusim.