Travelers, Tricksters, and Storytellers: Jewish Travel Narratives and Autobiographies

Jewish literature includes highly fascinating travel accounts and autobiographies that are still awaiting their discovery by a broader readership. In this course, we will explore a broad range of texts originating from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. They were written by both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews hailing from countries as diverse as Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire. Among the authors were pilgrims, rabbis, merchants, and one savvy businesswoman. We will read their works as responses to historical circumstances and as expressions of Jewish identity, in its changing relationship to the Christian or Muslim environment in which the writers lived or traveled. Specifically, we will ask questions such as: How do travel accounts and autobiographies enable their authors and readers to reflect on issues of identity and difference? How do the writers produce representations of an "other," against which and through which they define a particular sense of self? This course is open to students of varying interests, including Jewish, Islamic, or Religious Studies, medieval and early modern history, European or Near Eastern literatures. All texts will be read in English translation. Please note: L75 559 is intended for graduate students only.
Course Attributes: EN H; BU IS; AS HUM; AS LCD; FA HUM; AR HUM

Travelers, Tricksters, and Storytellers: Jewish Travel Narratives and Autobiographies

RELIGIOUS STUDIES 359

Section 01