Jewish Studies, Minor College of Letters & Science

Minor

Sven-Erik Rose, Ph.D., Program Director; term ends June 30, 2026.

Department Office

2216 Social Sciences & Humanities Building; 530-752-9241; Jewish Studies; Faculty

The Program in Jewish Studies offers students the opportunity to explore Jewish history, communities, literature, religion, and culture in a comparative perspective and multicultural framework. Courses include Hebrew language instruction as well as the study of classical and modern Jewish texts in translation.

The interdisciplinary minor in Jewish Studies provides an introduction to the study of Jewish culture, thought, history, and literature. Students learn a broad range of methodologies and critical concepts in these areas and gain insight into the relationship between Jewish identities, histories, and representations and those of the cultures in which Jews throughout the world have lived.

The Program in Jewish Studies will be of special interest to students in History, Religious Studies, Comparative Literature and Sociology as well as other fields in the Humanities & Social Sciences.

Advising

Jewish Studies Advising Contact

Choose one:4
History of the Jewish People in the Modern World
Introduction to Jewish Cultures
Emergence of Judaism, Christianity & Islam
The Bible & Its Interpreters
Introduction to Judaism
Choose four:16
Modern Jewish Writers
The Bible as Literature: The Old Testament
Readings in Jewish Writing & Thought in German Culture
After the Catastrophe: Jews & Jewish Life in Post-1945 Germany
Major Writers in German (When course covers a Jewish writer)
The Holocaust & its Literary Representation
History of the Jewish People in the Modern World
Themes in World History (When topic is Antisemitism & Islamophobia)
Topics in Pre-Modern Jewish History
Topics in Modern Jewish History
History of Jews in the Muslim World
History of Modern Palestine/Israel
History of the Holocaust
The Memory of the Holocaust
Topics in Jewish Thought
Selected Topics in Jewish Literature
Israeli Writing Since 1960
Readings in Jewish Writing & Thought in German Culture
Cinema & the American Jewish Experience
Oral History & Jewish Life
Emergence of Judaism, Christianity & Islam
Christian Origins
Sex & Gender in the Bible
Topics in Judaism
Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha, & Pseudepigrapha
The Formation of the Rabbinic Tradition
Topics in Religious Studies (When topic is Doom: The End of the World & After)
The Bible & Film
Topics in Russian Literature & Culture (When topic is Jews in Russian Literature & Culture)
International Politics of the Middle East
The Arab-Israeli Conflict
Special Studies in Comparative Politics (When topic is Israeli Politics)
American Jewish Identities & Communities
Total Units20