Fall 2016 Courses
Junior Seminar: Occupy Wall Street in Comparative Perspective
Political Science 191
Prof. Michael Shalev, Hebrew University
Whereas in the U.S. Occupy Wall Street mobilized primarily tent activists and met with a mixed public reception, earlier the same year protests of “indignant” youth in Southern Europe and Israel spurred mega-demonstrations and won broad public support. What explains the appearance of rare “encompassing” protests, and why did they occur in some countries and not others during the 2011 protest wave? Did the participants cross class, cultural and political boundaries more than Americans who supported and participated in Occupy? What political mechanisms and protest practices facilitate diversity of participation in mega-protests? We will draw on the literature on social movements and contentious politics, and will look closely at diverse national cases.
Economic Policy: Israel as a Case Study
Economics 196
Prof. Tali Regev, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya
This course introduces contemporary economic policy debates focusing on examples from the Israeli economy. The first part of the class will focus on Israel’s macroeconomic development. We will start with a brief introduction to the economic history of Israel. We will then discuss topics such as growth, the public sector and fiscal policy, inflation and monetary policy, privatization and liberalization. The second part of the course will focus on the ongoing macro and microeconomic challenges and policy implications for the Israeli economy. We will discuss topics in public finance and labor economics, exploring the regulation of natural resources, the welfare state, fertility, employment, immigration, emigration, and discrimination.
Comparative Constitutional Law: The Case of Israel
Legal Studies 174
Prof. Tamar Kricheli-Katz, Tel Aviv University
The course will provide an introduction to the theory and practice of constitutional law. It will use the Israeli constitutional law as an illustration to general concepts, issues and doctrines of constitutional law. The main approach to these issues will be a general social science foundational approach. An emphasis will be put on the law in action and on the possibility of social change. The main subjects discussed include: human rights law, equality and antidiscrimination, social change and legal change, social rights, constitutionalism and judicial review, minority rights (with a focus on group rights of Arab citizens of Israel and of Women in Israel), state and religion, freedom of expression, equality and antidiscrimination, social rights, and constitutional limitations on privatization.
Film: A Look Into Israeli Minorities
DeCal: Jewish Studies 98/198
Leora Ghadoushi, Berkeley Institute Undergraduate Fellow
Faculty Sponsor: Visiting Professor Ilana Szobel, Brandeis University
Through the use of film we are provided with a human dimension that extends beyond the daily news bulletins. In this course we will use film to foster social awareness and cultural understanding. This course presents dramatic and documentary films, as well as engaging speakers who will discuss the history, culture, and identity of minority populations in Israel. There will be a focus on minority populations such as Mizrachi Jews, Women in the periphery, the LGBTQ community, Israeli Arab and Palestinian citizens of Israel, refugees and foreign workers. The goal of this course is to promote awareness and appreciation of the diversity of the state of Israel, provide a dynamic and inclusive forum for exploration of, and dialogue about populations on the margins of Israeli society, and encourage cinematic expression and creativity dealing with these themes. The course is guided by the mission to showcase quality cinema that brings to the big screen the human stories and daily lives of minority groups living in the Jewish and Democratic state, often overlooked by mainstream Israeli society and culture. It is not about the conflict – it is not about taking sides – this course is about people.
Graduate Courses
False Consciousness – An Israeli Perspective
Graduate Seminar in Sociology, JS Designated Emphasis
Nissim Mizrachi, Tel Aviv University
Drawing on the current Israeli socio-political terrain, especially the persisting gap between the universalistic message of the liberal-left and the social particularity of its adherents and opponents, the seminar offers a theoretical investigation into the relevance of false consciousness as an analytic tool. The Israeli case will provide a window to a broader discussion of the concept. The issues to be explored include: What are the concept’s historiosophical roots? How does false consciousness manifest itself as a building block of critical theory? What groups have been characterized as exhibiting false consciousness, by whom and in what contexts? Our investigation will enable us to delve into core issues of interpretation and understanding in the social sciences and to rethink the interpretive space occupied by contemporary critical sociology
Spring 2017 Courses
Critical Issues in Israeli Society: A Multidisciplinary Perspective, from the Social Sciences to the Arts
Jewish Studies 39Q
Prof. Rebecca Golbert, Berkeley Institute Executive Director
This freshman/sophomore seminar will examine critical issues and challenges facing Israeli society – from the political, legal, and international realms to the social, economic, and cultural. It will explore ethnic, racial, and religious diversity but also social and economic inequality, the transition from a government controlled to a market-based economy, and the framework and challenges for democracy and social and constitutional rights. The course will explore critical issues in Israeli society from both social science perspectives – law, political science, sociology, economics – and from the arts and humanities – drawing on music, visual culture, film, theatre, and literature. It will culminate with students participating in an arts conference examining critical issues in Israeli society through the lens of the arts.
The Political Economy of Israel
Political Science 149S
Prof. Michael Shalev, Hebrew University
Political economy analyzes linkages between the economic and political spheres. It asks about the role of the state and politics in the economy; and conversely, how economic interests and power shape politics. The political economy of Israel today is similar to other capitalist democracies in having strong neoliberal or “free market” features. Yet at the same time, the Israeli state pursues an ambitious and expensive agenda related to territory, demography and national identity. The state also has unusual capacities to shape economic activity through war preparation, occupation, and by attracting resources from abroad such as immigration and foreign aid. The course addresses this and other puzzles posed by the Israeli case. They include the unusual meaning of left and right in Israeli politics, a clash between “hawks” and “doves” that is seemingly all about ideology and identity politics, not “pocketbook issues” and the economy. On these issues Israeli public opinion has a clear preference for equality and the welfare state over unbound capitalism. Yet inequality is high and rising, in part because of government policies. Another seeming paradox is that Israel’s economy performs well, led by a dynamic and entrepreneurial hi-tech sector. Yet despite structural reforms to encourage competition, large sectors are sheltered from competition, and so-called “tycoons” control many of Israel’s largest businesses and enjoy vast personal wealth.
Writing Gender in Modern Hebrew Literature
Hebrew 204B [Collaborative graduate seminar; in Hebrew]
Profs. Chana Kronfeld and Ilana Szobel, Berkeley Institute Visiting Professor, Brandeis University
This seminar aims to explore the aesthetics and politics of writing gender in modern Hebrew literature and culture: the gendered body of the poetic subject in juxtaposition with the metaphorical body of the nation-as-woman; the literary intersections of and resistance to political aggression and sexual violence; the grammars of gender and the genders of grammar in the work of Hebrew writers.
By opening the texts to a variety of reading strategies and theoretical approaches —from close and surface reading to feminist and queer theory, and from postcolonial thought and psychoanalysis to disability studies—the seminar will allow us to unpack the textualization of socio-poetic conjunctures , asking how they participate in, encourage or neutralize conflicting ideologies of the gendered body in modern Jewish culture.
The Un-Chosen Body: Disability in Israeli Literature, Film, and the Arts
NES 190H
Professor Ilana Szobel, Berkeley Institute Visiting Professor, Brandeis University
This course explores representations of disability within Hebrew and Israeli culture. By focusing on literature, film, dance, and visual art, it looks at personal and socio-political conceptualizations of disability. This course pursues various applications of physical, mental, and emotional disability experiences and theories to Zionist, Jewish-Israeli narratives and rhetoric. Thus, while we will examine how the social context of disability in Israel affects representations of disability, we will also consider the ways in which disabled experiences and the notion of disability in general raise questions about Israeli subjectivity.
Jewish Identity in 21st Century Theater
JS 198 002
DeCal Facilitated by Emili Bondar, Instructor of Record: Noam Gil
Theater has an affinity to capture life’s deepest complexities—turning fictional characters and literary themes into words wished to be spoken and emotions longed to be openly expressed by its audience. This course will grapple with themes on Jewish identity, experienced in the contemporary age. Students will be explore Jewish identity as it fits with homosexuality, women’s roles in society, and familial and spiritual belonging in the modern-day. The plays explored in this course will expand on the complexities and expectations of society, family, and oneself in being Jewish, and what it truly means to be a “Jew’. The goal of the class is to analyze the internal and external afflictions that we face as individuals, and as a society, in the struggle between self-identity and social acceptance. The second half of the course will include a full-length play or a series of short acts which will culminate with a final performance. Students are not required to act in the play.
Film: A Look into Israeli Minorities
JS 198/98
Facilitated by Leora Ghadoushi and Nikola Kendis
Join us as we use film to foster social awareness and cultural understanding. This course presents dramatic and documentary films, as well as engaging speakers who will discuss the history, culture, and identity of minority populations in Israel.