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Jewish Culture & Society News

Read article: Art History Graduate Student Alexandra Lyon on Studying Yiddish in Warsaw
Art History Graduate Student Alexandra Lyon on Studying Yiddish in Warsaw
This summer, I attended the 23rd International Summer Seminar in Yiddish Language and Culture at the Centrum Kultury Jidysz in Warsaw, Poland. I was part of the level two cohort and each day we spent four hours studying Yiddish. Our daily Yiddish lessons included a review of concepts like questions...
Read article: Funding Opportunities
Funding Opportunities
The Program in Jewish Culture & Society announces a call for applications for the Gendell/Shiner Family Fellowship, the Karasik Scholarship, and the Dick Abrams Scholarship. Applicants must be degree-seeking students in good academic standing enrolled at the University of Illinois. The...
Read article: Introducing New Faculty: Rachelle Grossman
Introducing New Faculty: Rachelle Grossman
Rachelle Grossman is an assistant professor in the Department of Comparative and World Literature. She is a specialist in Yiddish literature and print culture who received her PhD from Harvard University. Her current book manuscript discusses the transformation of...
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Alumni spotlight: Meagan Smith

Meagan Smith completed her PhD in Comparative and World Literature in 2022. Her dissertation, titled Science Fiction at the Border, examines representations of walled spaces in 20th and 21st century utopian and dystopian science fiction from Russia, Cuba, Mexico, the US and Canada. Her research draws these otherworldly fictional spaces together with investigations into the material innovations of the Industrial Revolution, critical examinations of the political and economic revolutions associated with the Cold War and the rise of neoliberalism, contemporary political debates...

Featured Courses: Fall 2025
HIST 355

Soviet Jewish History

Exploring the history of Jews in the Soviet Union, this course addresses the following questions: How were Jewish identities transformed during the Soviet period? What did it mean to be a Jew in the Soviet Union? How did Soviet Jewry persevere and restore after the collapse of the USSR?

CWL 209/JS 209

Jewish American and US Minority Literatures in Dialogue

We will encourage comparison across these different contexts while also preserving the distinctions inherent in minority groups. This course fulfills the Literature and the Arts General Education requirement, U.S. Minority Cultures General Education Requirement, the culture cluster for the minor/major in Jewish Studies, and REPCIS requirement for English.

REL 120

History of Judaism

The course examines the social, political, economic, and intellectual history of the Jews from Abraham to the present-day, with particular attention to Jewish thought and society.

REL 494

Modern Judaism: Religion, Culture, Politics

What is the relation of Judaism and the individual Jew to the modern world? Is Judaism a religion, a nationality, an ethnicity, or a combination of these? This course explores various answers to these questions by examining various historical and cultural formations of Jewish identity in Europe, the Americas/Caribbean, Asia, and Africa from the 18th century to the present.

hebrew keyboard

Intermediate Modern Hebrew I

Continuation of HEBR 202, with introduction of more advanced grammar, and with emphasis on more fluency in speaking and reading. 5 credit hours. Prerequisite: HEBR 202 or equivalent.

ruins of an ancient city from JS 231 course flyer

Development of Ancient Cities

Explore the monuments, archaeological remains, and histories illustrating the development of the earliest states and urban centers of the Ancient Mediterranean and Near East, including Uruk, Jerusalem, Carthage, Athens, and Rome.

GER 472/574

German-Jewish Literature from Salomon Maimon to Franz Kafka

This course focuses on expressions of the Jewish experience in German-language literature of the long nineteenth century. The main focus of the course will be the “dual identity” (Mendes-Flohr) experienced by German Jews writing in German.