HIST244

Description

Section information text: This course investigates social and cultural constructions of Jewish masculinities in historical perspective. We will examine masculinity both as a capacious, highly contingent, and socially constructed concept that has varied dramatically over time and space. At the same time, we will explore masculinity as an idea that has produced systems of power that have marginalized gender identities and expressions of gender that fall beyond a narrower construction of hegemonic masculinity. We will consider how Jewish masculinities have replicated and modified these power structures within the Jewish community and how Jewish masculinity has been framed as a foil or archetypal "other" against hegemonic masculinity. We will assess how both Jewish and non-Jewish ideas about Jewish masculinity have shaped debates about nationalism, citizenship, aesthetics, sexuality, and the family, and have intersected with race, ethnicity, class, and religion. We will also question how both scholarly and societal frameworks for understanding masculinity might be challenged or transformed by studying these questions from a Jewish historical perspective.