Course Offerings - Fall 2011

This course is required for all students.

Prof. Gal Levy
This course is a lecture series designed to offer students a broad perspective on Israeli society and on the Middle East at large. The lectures - by experts in various disciplines as well as by eminent cultural and political figures, alongside excursions in and ouside Israel - will set for students geographical and social coordinates from which they will be given the opportunity to engage themselves in this vibrant locality, learn its history and explore contemporary aspects of a place which is always lively, controversial, and intriguing.

Sample Syllabus

Prof. Kabalan 
Builds basic skills in modern standard Arabic, the language read and understood by educated Arabs from Baghdad to Casablanca.

Prof. Al-Azhari
Builds on the skills acquired in Elementary Arabic, with increased emphasis on writing and reading from modern sources in addition to aural/oral proficiency. 

Prof. TBA 
Course description coming soon.

Prof. TBA 
Active introduction to modern Hebrew as it is spoken and written in Israel today. Presents the essentials of Hebrew grammar, combining the oral-aural approach with formal grammatical concepts. Reinforces learning by reading of graded texts. Emphasizes the acquisition of idiomatic conversational vocabulary and language patterns.

Prof. TBA 

Continuation of Elementary Hebrew I. 

Prof. TBA 

Builds on skills acquired in Elementary Hebrew I and II and develops a deepening command of all linguistic skills. Modern literary and expository texts are read to expand vocabulary and grammatical knowledge, with conversation and composition exercises built around the texts. Introduces selections from Israeli media. Addresses the relationship between classical and modern Hebrew.

Prof. TBA 
Continuation of Intermediate Hebrew I.

Prof. TBA 

Aimed at training students in exact and idiomatic Hebrew usage and at acquiring facility of expression in both conversation and writing. Reading and discussion of selections from Hebrew prose, poetry, and current periodical literature.

Prof. TBA 
Designed to provide a thorough grounding in Hebrew grammar with special emphasis on phonology, morphology, and syntax. Concentrated study of vocalization, accentuation, declensions, conjugations, and classification of verbs

Prof. Meirav Aharon-Gutman 
Studying in Israel provides a unique opportunity to learn Qualitative Research Methods in a new site - Israel. As a visitor to Israel -- a stranger -- you will bring a unique perspective. The stranger can see things that the subjects can not. More important still, the stranger sees things in a critical way. This course will provide you with a toolbox that will help you collect, document and understand important aspects of Israeli reality. In class, we will read classics of social science theory and methods, and in the real world outside our windows we will explore and challenge those materials in engaged interaction with everyday Israel. As it is crucial to share not only knowledge but experience, some class meetings will take place "out there," and each student will conduct a small fieldwork.

Sample Syllabus 

Cross-listed with DRLIT-UA 9524 (Dramatic Literature)

Prof. Eytan Fox
The course will enrich the students’ understanding of Israeli Cinema as a microcosm of the young, vibrant, and continually changing Israeli state and society. We will analyze the cinematic expression of the themes behind the inception and evolution of the small yet multifaceted country, and note the differences between the cinema of the first and second wave of Israeli filmmakers.

Sample Syllabus

Open to all students. For NYU, fulfills MAP Cultures & Contexts requirement. Same as K20.9601 (Gallatin)

Prof. Ze'ev Emmerich
This course offers a unique opportunity to explore various aspects of the production of everydayness in Israel as it is manifested in different sites: the arts, the leisure industry and the spatio-temporal arrangements of daily routines and practices. The course will include: 14 lectures on aspects of Israeli politics and culture; visits to art exhibitions, music venues and the cinema; and observation of street life in Tel Aviv (day and night). Given its unique geo-political circumstances as well as its symbolic position, Israel has attracted much attention. This is equally true of media coverage as well as more scholarly treatment of the Israeli-Arab or Israeli-Palestinian conflict. More often than not, Israel is portrayed through the lens of high politics or treated as an exotic anomaly. Whether popular or academic in its orientation, the study of Israeli society has thus tended to neglect everyday life in Israel.

Sample Syllabus 

Cross-listed with ICINE-UT 0136 (Cinema Studies, Tisch)

Prof. Eytan Fox
The course will enrich the students’ understanding of Israeli Cinema as a microcosm of the young, vibrant, and continually changing Israeli state and society. We will analyze the cinematic expression of the themes behind the inception and evolution of the small yet multifaceted country, and note the differences between the cinema of the first and second wave of Israeli filmmakers.

Sample Syllabus

Identical to C31.0010 Prerequisites: V31.0002 and V63.0121 (Calculus I)

Professor TBA
Examines the manner in which producers, consumers, and resource owners acting through the market determine the prices and output of goods, the allocation of productive resources, and the functional distribution of incomes. The price system is seen as a network of interrelated decisions, with the market process serving to communicate information to decision makers.

Sample Syllabus 

Same as MAP-UA 9537 (MAP). This section for Gallatin Students only.

Prof. Ze'ev Emmerich
This course offers a unique opportunity to explore various aspects of the production of everydayness in Israel as it is manifested in different sites: the arts, the leisure industry and the spatio-temporal arrangements of daily routines and practices. The course will include: 14 lectures on aspects of Israeli politics and culture; visits to art exhibitions, music venues and the cinema; and observation of street life in Tel Aviv (day and night). Given its unique geo-political circumstances as well as its symbolic position, Israel has attracted much attention. This is equally true of media coverage as well as more scholarly treatment of the Israeli-Arab or Israeli-Palestinian conflict. More often than not, Israel is portrayed through the lens of high politics or treated as an exotic anomaly. Whether popular or academic in its orientation, the study of Israeli society has thus tended to neglect everyday life in Israel.

Sample Syllabus

Cross-listed with SCA-UA 9042 (Metropolitan Studies)

Enrollment by permission only. Application required. Application information can be found on the What's Next Blog for admitted students. Course includes weekly seminar and minimum of 10 hours fieldwork/ week at approved internship field-site.

Professor London
The seminar is designed to complement your internship fieldwork, exploring many different aspects of your organization and of Israel's Civil Society. Israel is a country where the government and the establishment at large have historically been very central in determining the country's political direction as well as its social fabric and political culture. It is therefore of special interest to study the emergence of new players in Israel, especially the role of the Third Sector, or Civil Society and within it the even newer phenomenon of Social Change Organizations and their effect on Israeli political and social life over the past three decades. Your goal is to finish the semester with an in-depth understanding of your agency, its approach, its policies, its programs, and the context in which it operates. You will also spend time reflecting on the internship experience itself as a way to better understand your academic, personal, and career goals. 

Prof. Yuval Gadot
The distant past of the Biblical Land of Israel is anything but passive. Events that had taken place thousands of years ago are still shaping contemporary societies and our present values around the globe. Biblical (old and new Testament) history is a fundamental component in the way children are brought up in Christian, Muslim and Jewish Societies. The past is also at the base of the present day conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis over the future of the land. The course offers a panoramic and comprehensive view of the social and political history of the Biblical Land of Israel and its relevance to present days. In the first meetings, the students will be introduced to Archaeology as a discipline and be familiarized with the archaeology of Biblical Israel. Following this, the course will offer a review of eight cross-cutting topics that encompass the economic, social and political fundamental structures which shape the region to date. Throughout the course, case-studies from the long history of the land will be chosen in order to illuminate the discussion. The course ends with a discussion over the relevance of the past to present days social and political issues and conflicts. 

Prof. Prusher
This course will teach journalism fundamentals as well as more advanced reporting techniques necessary for covering conflict the world over, from domestic issues affecting local communities to some of the most important geopolitical conflicts of our time. Alongside reading some of the best writing on contemporary conflict and discussing some of the difficulties of covering conflict, students will be expected to practice their reporting skills through field work. With supervision and assistance from the course instructor, students will take advantage of their surroundings in Tel Aviv-Jaffa as well as easy access to other locations in Israel.

Sample Syllabus

Cross-listed with INDIV-UG 9701 (Gallatin)

Enrollment by permission only. Application required. Application information can be found on the What's Next Blog for admitted students. Course includes weekly seminar and minimum of 10 hours fieldwork/ week at approved internship field-site.

Professor London
The seminar is designed to complement your internship fieldwork, exploring many different aspects of your organization and of Israel's Civil Society. Israel is a country where the government and the establishment at large have historically been very central in determining the country's political direction as well as its social fabric and political culture. It is therefore of special interest to study the emergence of new players in Israel, especially the role of the Third Sector, or Civil Society and within it the even newer phenomenon of Social Change Organizations and their effect on Israeli political and social life over the past three decades. Your goal is to finish the semester with an in-depth understanding of your agency, its approach, its policies, its programs, and the context in which it operates. You will also spend time reflecting on the internship experience itself as a way to better understand your academic, personal, and career goals.

Prof. Ram
More than 30 years have passed since 1979, the year when a self-styled Islamic Revolution unfolded in Iran. Historian Eric J. Hobsbawm branded this revolution as "one of the central social revolutions of the twentieth century"; and social scientist Richard Cottam described it as perhaps "the most popular revolution in the history of mankind." Whatever the case may be, we are now permitted to use the benefit of hindsight to revisit the 1979 revolution. In the first part of the course we will review the manifold causes of the 1979 revolution in a historical perspective, tracing the social, political, economic and cultural bases of the rise of the revolutionary movement and political Islam (or Islamism) in Iran. We will then move on to situate the revolution in a global context. This will enable us to examine Iranian history since 1979 in comparative perspective as well as to integrate the revolution into the "entangled histories" of modernity of which it is part. At the same time we will examine the cultural dimensions of the post-1979 state in Iran. We will consider cultural production in the Islamic Republic of Iran as a site of state domination and oppositional resistance. We will suggest that the Islamic Republic is a "scopic regime," developing a symbolic Islamism as a tool of propaganda and hegemony. At the same time, literature, cinema, and the visual arts have been sites of resistance. 

Prof. Rosenfeld 

The Israeli Palestinian conflict is one of the longest unresolved national conflicts of the modern era. With its roots in the early twentieth century, its persistence has shaped and affected – adversely, for the most part - the lives of millions of Palestinians and Israelis and engaged the international community for many decades. This course attempts to provide a comprehensive introduction to the historical evolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, to the core issues that comprise it, and to its major societal and political ramifications. Centrality is accorded to two key events and the contradictory consequences they bore for the two peoples: the first is the 1948 War, which gave rise to the emergence of the Israeli state and, at the same time, resulted in the mass uprooting of Palestinians, their dispersal in adjacent Arab countries, and subsequently in the yet unresolved Palestinian refugee problem. The second key event is the 1967 War, in the wake of which Israel imposed a regime of military occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, a regime that persists to this very day. At the same time, the war and its aftermath induced the emergence of the Palestinian resistance movement, which subsequently led to the consolidation of the PLO as the representative of Palestinian national aspirations. Major attention is given also to the hitherto failed attempts at resolving the conflict, with a focus on the shifting political agendas of the chief players (State of Israel and the Palestinian National Movement) and on the impact of international players and of the changing international contexts. 

Prof. 

Cross-listed with SOC-UA 9970 (Sociology) and RELST-UA 9613 (Religious Studies)

Prof. Moshe Berent
The purpose of this course is to examine the relation between religion and public life in both western and non western societies. Recently, the question of the relation between religion and public life has come to the fore again, for several reasons. First, the Third Wave of Democratization in certain Catholic, Orthodox and non-Christian societies has raised the question of the relation between religion and democratic political culture. Second, the immigration of non-Christians to certain western, ”Christian“ nations has tended to underline the Christian foundations of those national states. And third, the resurgence of religious fundamentalism in many parts of the world has sharpened the question of the relation between religion and public life in still other societies. All of these developments cast doubt on traditional theoretical formulations about both the privatization of religion and the secularization of the state. It seems that religion plays an important role in the formation of regimes and political patterns; that religious establishments and religious communities are occasionally involved in political struggles; and that religions introduce powerful symbols of identification that often mobilize the public for political purposes.

Sample Syllabus 

Prof. Michael Shalev

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the study of voter behavior in Israel. In particular, we will examine the role of the same social cleavages that are known to shape voting in other countries – particularly class and race/ethnicity. One key focus will be on the stark differences in both the party system and election outcomes between Jewish and Arab voters. Among Jews, the role of ethnic voting and its relationship to the class cleavage will be another key focus. The course will include limited hands-on data analysis by the participants, guided by the instructor. 

Prof. Lutmar

International negotiation has become the most widely used means of conflict management in international affairs.  Negotiations of international significance are today conducted not only between individual states, but also within and beyond them. At the same time negotiation practice itself is undergoing much change with changing patterns of conflict and intervention, new urgent issues on the global agenda, new actors and new emerging norms.

This course provides an overview of negotiation and conflict resolution theories and practices of international importance – bilateral, regional and multilateral. The emphasis is on different approaches/aspects to understanding what drives the negotiation process and explains the outcome. Why do some negotiations succeed, while others keep failing? Why do some peace settlements succeed while others fail?  We will examine not only the official negotiation process but also the important functions of pre-negotiation, second-track diplomacy and post-agreement negotiations concerned with implementation and compliance. 

While we will give many examples from various civil and international conflicts, our main focus will be on two regional conflicts – Cyprus and the Arab-Israeli conflict.  There will also be guest lectures by some of those who were involved in peace negotiations in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and we will also go on a 3-days trip to Cyprus where we will meet some of those who were involved in mediation efforts in the Cyprus conflict. 

Cross-listed with POL-UA 9994 (Politics) and SOC-UA 9970 (Sociology)

Prof. Moshe Berent
The purpose of this course is to examine the relation between religion and public life in both western and non western societies. Recently, the question of the relation between religion and public life has come to the fore again, for several reasons. First, the Third Wave of Democratization in certain Catholic, Orthodox and non-Christian societies has raised the question of the relation between religion and democratic political culture. Second, the immigration of non-Christians to certain western, ”Christian“ nations has tended to underline the Christian foundations of those national states. And third, the resurgence of religious fundamentalism in many parts of the world has sharpened the question of the relation between religion and public life in still other societies. All of these developments cast doubt on traditional theoretical formulations about both the privatization of religion and the secularization of the state. It seems that religion plays an important role in the formation of regimes and political patterns; that religious establishments and religious communities are occasionally involved in political struggles; and that religions introduce powerful symbols of identification that often mobilize the public for political purposes.

Sample Syllabus

Cross-listed with V53.9994 (Politics) and V90.9613 (Religious Studies).

Prof. Moshe Berent
The purpose of this course is to examine the relation between religion and public life in both western and non western societies. Recently, the question of the relation between religion and public life has come to the fore again, for several reasons. First, the Third Wave of Democratization in certain Catholic, Orthodox and non-Christian societies has raised the question of the relation between religion and democratic political culture. Second, the immigration of non-Christians to certain western, ”Christian“ nations has tended to underline the Christian foundations of those national states. And third, the resurgence of religious fundamentalism in many parts of the world has sharpened the question of the relation between religion and public life in still other societies. All of these developments cast doubt on traditional theoretical formulations about both the privatization of religion and the secularization of the state. It seems that religion plays an important role in the formation of regimes and political patterns; that religious establishments and religious communities are occasionally involved in political struggles; and that religions introduce powerful symbols of identification that often mobilize the public for political purposes.

Sample Syllabus