Established in 1973, the Bud Shorstein Center for Jewish Studies promotes academic study of Jewish culture, history, and politics for all students at the University of Florida. The Center offers a major and a minor program; some of our students engage in a double or dual major with other programs. In addition, students can take individual classes or certificate programs in European Jewish Studies, Holocaust Studies, or Israel Studies consisting of fifteen credit hours each. The Center’s curriculum encourages critical thinking, textual analysis, research, oral argumentation, and writing. The Center also has a number of scholarships.
Broadcasting Diaspora
JST2930(27927), REL2930(27537) by Dr. Yaniv Feller
T | Period 4 (10:40 AM -11:30 AM) R | Periods 4-5 (10:40 AM -12:35 PM)
Counts for European Jewish Studies Certificate & Holocaust Studies Certificate
From Ukraine to Syria, the world is experiencing the greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War. It changes our politics, religion, and culture. Learn about refugees, exiles, and diaspora communities worldwide, all while developing the ability to write, edit, and produce your own podcast.
Jews, Judaism & Jewishness
JST2930(25573), REL2600(25040) by Dr. Yaniv Feller
T | Period 7 (1:55 PM -2:45 PM) R | Periods 7-8 (1:55 PM -3:50 PM)
What exactly is a Jew and why is Jewish history so fascinating? Explore ancient and contemporary Jewish life and think about whether Jews are religion, race, culture, or ethnicity. To answer these questions, we will look at films, historical documents, and graphic novels.
Israel and French Cinema
JST3930(18323), FRT2460(25656), EUS 3930(28824) by Dr. Gayle Zachmann
MWF | Period 5 (11:45 AM -12:35 PM)
Counts for European Jewish Studies Certificate & Israel Studies Certificate
The course focuses on Franco-Israeli cultural relations and the representation of Israel in French cinema in a transnational context. Includes French and Israeli films and co-productions; interviews with filmmakers, critics and archivists; and targeted readings.
Jews and Muslims in Modern Istanbul
JST3930(28291), REL3938(28991) by Dr. Esra Almas
MWF | Period 6 (12:50 PM -1:40 PM)
Using Istanbul as the main setting, this course examines Jewish-Muslim encounters in Modern Turkey. Through readings and films, we will explore the relation between urban space and identity. The course also explores coexistence through food, music, and forms of memory. We will also gain familiarity with the disciplines of anthropology, cultural studies, history, and sociology, and discover how they help us to understand urban life in the modern Middle East.
The Hebrew Bible as Literature
JST3930(27926), REL3213(27532), LIT3374(27672) by Dr. Robert Kawashima
MWF | Period 8 (3:00 PM -3:50 PM)
Counts for Israel Studies Certificate
The course introduces students to the literary study of the Hebrew Bible. We will focus primarily on biblical narrative with a bit of poetry. More generally, this course will introduce students to the scholarly study of literature.
Jewish-American Cinema
JST4936(18220), LIT4930(28338) by Dr. Dragan Kujundzic
T | Periods 7 (1:55 PM -2:45 PM), R | Period 7-8 (1:55 PM -3:50 PM)
The course will address the development and shared culture between Jewish-American Cinema.
Photoethnography
JST4936(25624), ANT4930(28293) by Dr. Jack Kugelmass
M | Period 3 (9:35 AM -10:25 AM), W | Periods 3-4 (9:35 AM -11:30 AM)
This course dives into photoethnography, a approach that applies to both research and writing with the purpose of analyzing and describing personal experience in order to better understand culture.
Jewish Life in Europe Today
JST3930(28860), EUS3930(22824), GET3930(28695) by Dr. Armin Langer
T | Period 4 (10:40 AM -11:30 AM), R | Periods 4-5 (10:40 AM -12:35 PM)
Counts towards European Jewish Studies Certificate This course addresses the evolution of Jewish communities in Europe since 1945, focusing on Jewish migration waves, relationship with Israel, antisemitism, and other minorities; religious life and secularism, political allegiances, and the European ‘Jewish renaissance’ discourse.
Reading Jewish Lives, 1430-1830
JST3930(25668), MEM3931(28899) by Dr. Yehoshua Ecker
MWF | Period 7 (1:55 PM -2:45 PM)
Counts for European Jewish Studies Certificate
Narrating trouble and travel in the early modern information age, Jews and former Jews wrote about life experiences in a variety of forms. We will discuss autobiographical texts written throughout the Jewish world in what is termed the Early Modern period, when communication and record keeping increased. Jewish memoirs, diaries, travelogues, letters, as well as legal statements, petitions, and other official documents reflect rapidly changing times, new experiences, and the ways they affected individual lives and challenge established, Eurocentric, Christian centered, modernist readings.
Writing Local Jewish Histories
JST4936(26206) by Dr. Yehoshua Ecker
MWF | Period 5 (11:45 AM -12:35 PM)
Hands-on exploration of local history in the Jewish context. “Local history” encompasses many options for research, including community studies, micro-history, biographical collections, regional history, family history, urban history, oral history, and commemoration projects. The weekly and final assignments will be geared towards making contributions to the study of local Jewish history, with focus on specific regions and places.
Filming Palestine 1896-1948
JST3930(25669), MEM3931(28901) by Dr. Yehoshua Ecker
M | Periods 9-10 (4:05 PM -6:00 PM), F | Period 9 (4:05 PM -4:55 PM)
Counts for Israel Studies Certificate
Late Ottoman and British Palestine as revealed in footage from the first 50 years of motion pictures. Early film images served the curiosity of distant viewers and offer glimpses of a bygone past. With a mix of archeological and ancient sites, medieval Byzantine and Crusader edifices, historical reconstructions, and pilgrimage routes, the footage captured wartime and peacetime, tradition and change and the impact of political and social realities as they transformed the area.
Yiddish in New York
JST3939(28805), LIT3173(28842) by Dr. Jason Wagner
T | Periods 8-9 (3:00 PM -4:55 PM) R | Period 9 (4:05 PM -4:55 PM )
Counts for Holocaust Studies Certificate & European Jewish Studies Certificate
This class examines an American literature that still awaits appreciation. As a result of the mass emigration of Jews from Eastern Europe in the late 19th-early 20th century, New York became a global center of Yiddish culture. Yiddish writers, journalists, actors, filmmakers, and political activists produced a rich and diverse culture, which flourished for a good part of the last century. This class will examine different genres of Yiddish cultural creativity, highlighting the specific nyu-yorkish qualities. This course does not assume any prior knowledge of Yiddish language or culture.
Topics in Israeli Politics and Society
JST3930(23935), CPO3410(25121) by Dr. Patricia Sohn
T | Periods 5-6 (11:45 AM -1:40 PM), R | Period 6 (12:50 PM -1:40 PM)
Counts for Israel Studies Certificate
The course addresses Israeli politics and society from a comparative politics perspective with a focus on several important themes including: judicial politics and constitutional jurisprudence; Kosher laws; government and politics of Israel; religion and politics; Supreme Court biography; Labor, Likud, and the Kibbutz movement; and social movements.
Jew Hatred
JST4936(28148), REL4936(28202), EUH3931(28184), EUS4930(28151)
by Dr. Norman Goda
W | Periods 8-10 (3:00 PM -6:00 PM
Counts for Holocaust Studies Certificate & European Jewish Studies Certificate
Why is antisemitism the world’s “oldest hatred?” Why does it morph into different forms regardless of historical period? Why is it at home on the political right as well as on the political left? This class offers the chance for deep analysis into some of the world’s most infamous antisemitic canards and texts from antiquity to the present day.
Kafka and the Kafkaesque
JST4936(25620), LIT4930(25535), GET3930(21168) by Dr. Eric Kligerman
T | Period 7 (1:55 PM -2:45 PM), R | Periods 7-8 (1:55 PM -3:50 PM)
Counts for European Jewish Studies Certificate
This seminar will explore the writings of Franz Kafka and the effect that his work has had on modern literature and film. Our readings of Kafka will center on such topics as law and justice, family and solitude, humans and animals, crisis of modernity, and questions pertaining to German-Jewish identity.
Representations of War & Political Violence
JST3930(28894), LIT4930(28342), GET3580(28402) by Dr. Eric Kligerman
T | Periods 4-5 (10:40 AM -12:35 PM), R | Period 4 (10:40 AM -11:30 AM)
This course probes the cultural, social and political functions of horror in relation to shifting moments of historical violence. After reading and screening works from the horror genre, we will examine some of the emblematic scenes of historical violence. Turning to the legacies of colonialism, the First World War, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War and 9/11, we investigate the intersection between narratives of horror in the realms of both fantasy and history.
Politics of Holocaust Memory
JST3930(TBA), EUS3930(28803) by Dr. Esther Romeyn
MWF | Period 5 (11:45 AM -12:35 PM)
Counts for Holocaust Studies Certificate
The courses introduces variable topics in Jewish thought, history, literature and culture as represented in classified Jewish texts, Jewish law, Jewish ethics, folklore, Hasidism and Holocaust literature.
Vampire Cinema
JST4936(18786), LIT4930(28336) by Dr. Dragan Kujundzic
T | Periods 8-9 (3:00 PM -4:55 PM), R | Period 9 (4:05 PM -4:55 PM)
Vampires, werewolves, ghosts and apparitions from Bram Stoker to Francis Ford Coppola and Anne Rice. The course addresses vampirism and psychoanalysis, vampirism and modernism, vampirism and cinema, queer, gay and lesbian vampires, vampires of East and Central Europe, vampirism and anti-Semitism, vampirism and religion, vampirism and nationalism, history of blood in religion, and blood libel.
Syllabi
Broadcasting Diaspora | JST2930(27927), REL2930(27537) by Dr. Yaniv Feller Jews, Judaism & Jewishness | JST3930(25573), REL2600(25040) by Dr. Yaniv Feller The Hebrew Bible as Literature | JST3930(27926), REL3213(27532), LIT3374(27672) Dr. Robert Kawashima Jewish-American Cinema | JST4936(18220), LIT4930(28338) by Dr. Dragan Kujundzic Jewish Life in Europe Today | JST3930(28860), EUS3930(22824), GET3930(28695) by Dr. Armin Langer Yiddish in New York | JST3939(28805), LIT3173(28842) by Dr. Jason Wagner Topics in Israeli Politics and Society | JST3930(23935), CPO3410(25121) by Dr. Patricia Sohn Vampire Cinema | JST4936(18786), LIT4930(28336) by Dr. Dragan Kujundzic