Revel, Jewish Art and Visual Culture, SP 2013

Jewish Art and Visual Culture Prof. Steven Fine Bernard Revel Graduate School Office: Belfer Hall 524 Steven.Fine@yahoo.com Spring, 2013 This course introduces the use of Jewish art and visual culture as sources for the study of Jewish history. The focus this semester is the menorah—from the Bible to modern times. Course Requirements: 1. Active participation in each session of this course is vital for your success. You will, of course, arrive to class having completed each reading and written assignment in its entirety, and be prepared to actively discuss its contents (on occasion as the discussion leader). Punctual attendance and full participation are mandatory and count for 20% of your grade. 2. Prepare a 750 word encyclopedia-quality article on one specific site or subject discussed in either Hebrew or English that will be posted on Wikipedia. Due: March 1. 30% of grade. 3. Prepare a 15-20 page research paper on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor, and present a seminar based upon your work during one of the last sessions of this course. Your seminar project will include a PowerPoint presentation. Any paper turned in after June 1 will receive one grade lower than you might otherwise have received. 50% of grade. Office hours are W 3-5 and by appointment. For best success in this course you are invited to visit regularly. Contact via E-Mail (steven.fine@yahoo.com) is encouraged. You are invited to visit my website, were course materials will be posted regularly, at: http://yeshiva.academia.edu/StevenFine/About This syllabus is subject to change during the course of the semester. Required Textbook: Israeli, Yael. ed. In the Light of the Menorah. Jerusalem: Israel Museum, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2000. Schedule Week 1. Introduction to the Study of Jewish Art and Visual Culture Skim Cecil Roth, Jewish Art (either edition) Week 2. “The Artless Jew” Kalman Bland, The Artless Jew: Affirmations and Denials of the Visual, 1-58. Fine, Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World, ch. 1-4. Week 4. Methodologies of Seeing Erwin Panofsky, “Iconology and Iconography: An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art,” posted at; http://www.scribd.com/doc/70426208/PanofskyIconography-and-Iconology , Nicholas Mirzoeff, "What is Visual Culture?" The Visual Culture Reader (2nd ed.). posted at: http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/MirzoeffWhat_is_Visual_Culture.pdf Assignment: Bring an object from home, any object (the more simple, the better), and interpret it in terms of the categories set out by Panofsky. Write up about 2 pages of notes, and be prepared to present your results. Week 5. Imaging the Biblical Menorah Assignment: Draw a rendering of the menorah as described in Exodus strictly based upon the verses themselves. Then do the same for the menorah in Zech. 9. Only after you have completed the above, read the articles by Hareuveni and Hachlili and Merav in By the Light of the Menorah. Carol Meyers, The Tabernacle Menorah, skim entire book, only then reading the introduction to the second edition. Week 6. The Menorah During the Latter Second Temple Period Heinrich Strauss, “The Date and Form of the Menorah of the Maccabees,” Eretz Israel 6 (1960), 122-9, Hebrew. Daniel Sperber, “The History of the Menorah,” Journal of Jewish Studies 15 (1965), 171204. Isaac Herzog, “The Shape of the Menorah in the Arch of Titus,” Scritti in memoria di Sally Mayer (Jerusalem: Mosad Shelomoh Meir, Milan: Makhon le-Madaei ha-Yahadut, 1956), 95-8, Hebrew. Fine, Art and Judaism, 148-154. Look up all of the primary sources discussed there. Week 7. The Arch of Titus and its Menorah: 70-600. Yohanan Hans Lewy, Studies in Jewish Hellenism (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1969), 255-8, Hebrew. Fine, “’When I went to Rome, there I Saw the Menorah...’: The Jerusalem Temple Implements between 70 C.E. and the Fall of Rome,” in The Archaeology of Difference: Gender, Ethnicity, Class and the “Other” in Antiquity Studies in Honor of Eric M. Meyers. Eds. D. R. Edwards and C. T. McCollough. Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research. 1 (2007): 169-80. Posted at: http://yeshiva.academia.edu/StevenFine/About F. Millar, “Last Year in Jerusalem.” Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome. Ed. J. Edmondson, S. Mason, and J. Rives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. 101-28. R. Boustan, “The Spoils of the Jerusalem Temple at Rome and Constantinople Jewish Counter-Geography in a Christianizing Empire.” Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World, eds. G. Gardner and K. Osterloh. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2008: 327–72. Posted at: http://ucla.academia.edu/RBoustan Week 8. The Menorah in Late Antiquity E. Bollman, “Reflections on the Red Monastery Project: 2000 – 2008,” Bulletin of the American Research Center in Egypt, No. 194 (Winter 2009). 9-13. Posted at: http://temple.academia.edu/ElizabethBolman Barag and Habas, in By the Light of the Menorah. L. Levine, “The History and Significance of the Menorah in Antiquity,” in From Dura to Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society in Late Antiquity, L. I. Levine, Zeev Weiss, eds., Portsmouth: JRA, 2000, 131-153. Fine, Art and Judaism, 154-65. Week 9. The Menorah in the Middle Ages Revel-Neher, Kuhnel, Narkiss, Sarfaty in By the Light of the Menorah. M. Narkiss, “Niello: Pereq bi-ydi’at ha-techniqa shel Rashi,” Sefer Rashi, ed. J. L. Maimon (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kuk, 1956), 538-42, Hebrew. Fine, “The United Colors of the Menorah: Some Byzantine and Medieval Perspectives on the Biblical Lampstand,” Isaac Kalimi and P.J. Haas (eds.), Biblical Interpretation in Judaism And Christianity. London and New York: T. & T. Clark International, 2006. Week 10. The Menorah from the Early Modern to Modern Period in Jewish Ceremonial Art R. Cohen, Jewish Icons, 68-113. Fishof, Juhasz in By the Light of the Menorah. M. Narkiss, Menorat ha-Hanukkah (all). D. Sperber, TBA Week 11. The Menorah in the History of Zionism By the Light of the Menorah 17-25, 154-210. Mishory, A. 2000. Lo and Behold: Zionist Icons and Visual Symbols in Israeli Culture. Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot. 138-96. Hebrew. Week 12. Chabad and its Menorah M. M. Schneerson, Likkutei Sichos, Vol. XXI, Parshas Terumah; Vol. XXVI, Parshas Tetzaveh Sue Fishkoff, The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch. New York, 2003, 285-300. Maya Balakirsky Katz, The Visual Culture of Chabad, Cambridge, 2010, 174-224. Morris M. Faierstein, “The Maimonidean Menorah and Cotemporary Chabad messianism: A Reconsideration,” Modern Judaism 32,3 (2012) 323-334. Week 13. Fieldtrip to the Jewish Museum Weeks 15-16. Student Presentations