Courses

Current Courses

Between the Imperial and the National: The Historical Region of Moravia | Dr. Iris Nachum | Spring Semester 2024 - 2025

Semester: 
2nd semester
Offered: 
2024

This course, which includes an excursion, provides an overview of the history of Moravia - a geographical region in the southeastern part of the contemporary Czech Republic - from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. The course presents Moravia as a case study of a Central European territory marked by numerous political vicissitudes and upheavals, both during the imperial regime and in the era of the nation-state.

Past Courses

Migration, Citizenship, and National Belonging | Dr. Jonathan Grossman | Fall & Spring Semester 2023 - 2024

Semester: 
Yearly
Offered: 
2023
This course deals with immigration, emigration and relations between immigrants and the elites and institutions of their countries of origin and destination. Throughout the year, we will talk about the various dilemmas faced by immigrants and refugees, as well as the governments and societies in the country they immigrated to and the country they emigrated from. We will examine these issues from a theoretical and generalized perspective, but we will also analyze specific historical and contemporary cases from different regions of the world.

Freedom of Worship in Ancient Rome | Dr. Matthias Schmidt | Fall Semester 2023 - 2024

Semester: 
2nd semester
Offered: 
2023
The seminar will check if modern concepts of the individual freedom of worship - which “consists of the right to practice, to manifest and to change one’s religion and where the modern democratic state is neutral towards the variety of religions, but protects the right of citizens to practice their different religious beliefs” (https://brill.com/display/title/31824) - have their roots in ancient Roman civilization in spite of the close linkage between politics and religion in antiquity.
 

Law in Times of Crises: The Jurist Jacob Robinson (1889-1977) | Dr. Iris Nachum | Spring Semester 2023 - 2024

Semester: 
2nd semester
Offered: 
2024

The seminar examines the life, work, and times of the Jewish jurist Jacob Robinson who was born in Lithuania in 1889 and died in New York in 1977. In doing so, special attention is given to his engagement for the protection of minority rights. The seminar’s approach is multidisciplinary, combining elements from history, law, and political science.

Historical Trials | Dr. Yehudit Dori Deston | Spring Semester 2023 - 2024

Semester: 
2nd semester
Offered: 
2024
The course will deal with legal proceedings in Israel and around the world that have become entrenched in the public opinion as exceptional or as ones that contributed to the construction of a national narrative, both in the manner in which they were conducted, in their legal outcome or in the extent to which they succeeded in achieving pedagogical goals.

Religion, Culture, Nation: Rights in 19th Century German Discourse | Tamar Kogman | Spring Semester 2023 - 2024

Semester: 
2nd semester
Offered: 
2024
Are religion and politics necessarily connected? How and why does one distinguish between religion and culture? And how do these categories determine rights and legal status? In this course we will examine inter-religious and inter-confessional tensions in the German territories in the 19th century, with an emphasis on the conceptualization and legislation of religious rights. We will examine how the definition of “religion” became a point of contention between liberals and conservatives, and how this affected religious minorities, primarily Catholics and Jews.

Modern European Political Theories | Dr. Iris Nachum | Fall Semester 2021

Semester: 
1st semester
Offered: 
2021

The seminar examines the historical development of key political theories in modern Europe. In doing so, special attention is given to social contract theory, liberalism, individualism, and socialism. The seminar’s approach is multidisciplinary, combining elements from history, political science, philosophy, and law.

Ancient Monuments and Places of Memory - Between Science Orientalism, Translocation and Restitution | Dr. Matthias Schmidt | Spring Semester 2021

Semester: 
2nd semester
Offered: 
2021

The seminar will focus on prominent representative examples of seizure of cultural goods during colonialism, specific large-scale displacements and translocations as a result of a partition of excavation discoveries and research expeditions and on other displacements of ancient cultural assets from the Greek and Roman World as well as Mesopotamia and Egypt - like Troia, Mykene, Delphi, Athens, Pergamon, Tell Halaf, Uruk, Ninive, Babylon, Armana and the Valley of the Kings.

 

History of Political Concepts and Ideas | Dr. Iris Nachum | Fall Semester 2020

Semester: 
1st semester
Offered: 
2020

The seminar examines the historical development of key political concepts and ideas. In doing so, special attention is given to the changing meanings of “justice”, “freedom”, “equality”, and other major terms of Western thought. The seminar’s approach is multidisciplinary, combining elements from history, political science, philosophy, and law.