{"id":1381,"date":"2012-11-07T16:25:27","date_gmt":"2012-11-07T20:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/?page_id=1381"},"modified":"2012-11-07T16:27:04","modified_gmt":"2012-11-07T20:27:04","slug":"modern-secular-nationalism-ancient-memories-the-case-of-the-jew","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/course-outline\/modern-secular-nationalism-ancient-memories-the-case-of-the-jew\/","title":{"rendered":"Modern Secular Nationalism, Ancient Memories: The Case of the Jew"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Samuel Kassow, Charles H. Northam Professor of\u00a0 History,\u00a0Trinity College<\/p>\n

Course Syllabus<\/p>\n

The purpose of this course is to use the modern Jewish experience in order to introduce students to the complexities and challenges of understanding and defining the development of modern nationalism. The course will consist of two major parts. The first part will examine theories of nationalism and then survey the rise of modern nationalist ideologies in Europe. The second part will take up the Jews as a \u201ccase study\u201d. In what ways does the development of modern Jewish nationalism conform to various topographies of nationalist ideology? How was modern Jewish Nationalism influenced by non-Jewish models and doctrines? By the same token, in what ways was the Jewish experience \u201csui generis\u201d or unique? How can a case study of modern Jewish nationalism clarify wider aspects of nationalism as a political issue?<\/p>\n

The course assumes that in studying the development of Modern Jewish Nationalism, and especially Zionism, the student will come to understand the complexities and apparent paradoxes that mark the rise of modern national identities. On the one hand Zionism strove to make the Jews a \u201cnormal\u201d people, yet on the other hand modern Zionism drew much of its inspiration from the traditional conviction that Jews were a \u201cspecial\u201d people and that their modern liberation movement had to create a model state and not just, to quote Ahad Ha\u2019am, a \u201ckind of Jewish Latvia\u201d (i.e., just another tiny ethnic nation state. We apologize in advance to any Latvians). In many ways Zionism was a strikingly modern movement that borrowed freely from the national awakenings of neighboring peoples and that offered new models of leadership and new modes of mobilization and propaganda. But on the other hand, Zionism also was inextricably linked to an ancient religious tradition, to the Bible and to powerful national memories and myths. While other national movements also appropriated and invented convenient \u201cusable pasts\u201d and fashioned stirring \u201cimagined communities\u201d, it was modern Jewish nationalism more than any other that had to renegotiate and redefine the complex interplay of religious and ethnic identities and motifs.<\/p>\n

Students will begin by surveying some of the recent scholarship on Nationalism and then discuss some of the major issues that have preoccupied scholars. Is nationalism a largely modern phenomenon, an invented instrument that uses modern forms of communication to create \u201cimagined communities\u201d, mobilize backward masses, facilitate industrial development and bolster the power of self anointed elites? Or must one modify this linkage of nationalism and modernity in order to admit such decidedly pre-modern antecedents and models as the Bible, the Reformation and atavistic ethnic bonds? The first part of the course will also examine and redefine the common distinction between \u201cethnic\u201d or \u201ccivic\u201d nationalism. It will consider the complex role of religion in modern nationalism, as well as the reasons why some nationalisms proved to be more aggressive and exclusive than others. Studies will then study the complex interplay of ideology and nationalism as they consider critiques from the Left and from the Right.<\/p>\n

Part One:\u00a0Defining a Nation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Week One<\/p>\n