INTELLECTUAL HISTORY AND TEXTUAL PRACTICES (HEBREW)

L'insegnamento ricade tra gli insegnamenti caratterizzanti del curriculum del corso "Lingue, Culture e Società dell'Asia e dell'Africa Mediterranea". I suoi obiettivi formativi rientrano nell'area di apprendimento delle competenze culturali e umanistiche.

Student will be introduced to the literature and piety of early rabbinic Judaism (from 1st cent. CE to the Middle Ages), with a peculiar focus on ethics and moral instruction. Chapters 3-6 of Pirqe Aboth (Chapters of the Fathers), the most widespread classic of Jewish morals (with many parallels in the Gospels and other ancient Christian literature), will be thoroughly read and analysed in the Hebrew original.

Communicating capabilities:
- capability to express and process the contents of the course and the topic of the papers in written form (in Italian or in English for non-Italian speaking students).

Learning capabilities:
- efficiently taking lecture notes in classroom;
- critically integrating different teaching materials (class notes, slides, handbooks, academic papers);
- independent, critical study of course-related topics not dealt in class;
- improving the student's capability to read and process materials in English.

Two years of study of Hebrew, both classical and modern.

i. Introduction to rabbinic Judaism, its formation, history, literature, and piety.
ii. Classic Jewish morals. Reading, translation, and analysis of Pirqe Aboth (Chapters of the Fathers) in the Hebrew original.

The Hebrew texts will be available online.

Instructional tools:
1) G. Stemberger, "Introduzione all'ebraistica", transl. Morcelliana, Brescia 2013.
2) M. Pérez Fernández, "An Introductory Grammar of Rabbinic Hebrew", transl. Brill, Leiden/New York/Köln 1995.
3) M. Jastrow "A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature", Luzac/Putnam, London/New York 1903 (<http://www.tyndalearchive.com/TABS/Jastrow/index.htm> ;).
4) U. Eco, "Come si fa una tesi di laurea. Le materie umanistiche", Bompiani, Milano 1977 and reprints.

The final evaluation mark will depend on:
50 % - attendance to classes and participation to discussion in class;
50 % - evaluation of paper(s), considering in particular i) correctness of expression in Italian (or English) and ii) observance of the editorial rules explained in Eco's above-indicated handbook.

The list of suggested topics and bibliographies for papers will be made available to students via mailing list at the beginning of the teaching term. Papers are required i) to be in Word format (PDFs will not be evaluated), ii) not to exceed 30.000 characters (spaces included; front pages, summaries, and bibliographies are excluded from the count), and iii) to observe the editorial indications and rules for quoting bibliography explained in U. Eco's handbook. Papers may be submitted at any time during the academic year, regardless of the dates of the calls.

Students non attending classes are required to submit two papers.

Classroom lectures. The translation of the texts will be assigned as homework and checked in class.

Italian

written