CULTURAL NARRATIVES AND DYNAMICS (HEBREW)

The seminar is among the core seminars of the MA degree LICAAM and aims at giving students intermediate advanced methodological tools (CEFR levels B2-C1) in the fields of Hebrew Language and Literary Studies, as well as Cultural Studies.
The seminar aims to give students the possibility of improving the knowledge of modern Judaism and Jewish identity in the Mediterranean and beyond, while at the same time giving useful tools for future culture and third-sector professionals. Basing upon an interdisciplinary perspective, the seminar wants to situate the study of Judaism within Cultural Studies and Memory Studies.
Its objective is also to strengthen the language and literary skills acquired in the previous years by the students, so as to get to a very good knowledge of the subject, in the more general context of modern Middle Eastern languages and literatures.

1. Knowledge and comprehension: ● Knowing modern Hebrew at advanced intermediate level and understanding texts in this language; ● Knowing the various characteristics of modern Hebrew and understanding their interaction; ● Knowing modern Hebrew at advanced intermediate level and its application at literary and non-literary level.
2. Ability to apply knowledge and comprehension: ● Being able to correctly utilize Hebrew in most of the processes of application and communication basing on the knowledge acquired; ● Being able to operate a linguistic and grammar analysis of different aspects of modern Hebrew; ● Being able to apply linguistic skills in order to analyze various textual and metatextual typologies.
3. Judgement ability: ● Being able to formulate hypothesis, developing also a critical approach to the evaluation of alternatives.
4. Communication skills: ● Being able to communicate in different fields of daily life, and not only, in modern Hebrew; ● Interacting with the lecturer and the other students respectfully.
5. Learning abilities: ● Being able to take notes and share them; ● Consulting critically the reference texts and the bibliography.

At the end of the seminar, students will also be able to identify the roles of memory in Jewish and non-Jewish contexts, and to analyze different spaces where this is represented (museums, archives) and the means of visual and digital communication where it is transmitted and screened. Additionally, students will improve their knowledge of modern Hebrew - both in the written and oral dimension (CEFR level B2-C1) - and of modern Hebrew (and Jewish) literature.

Adequate knowledge of English.
Intermediate knowledge of modern Hebrew.

Non-Hebrew speaking students can agree an alternative syllabus (as well as a different kind of exam).

JEWISH MEMORY: NARRATIVES, SPACES, LANGUAGES
The course will introduce memory as a central analytical category to understand the historical and literary dynamics of contemporary Jewry. By adopting the perspective of Memory Studies, as well as Heritage Studies and semiotics of text, together with the translation and critical reading of Jewish authors (both from the Diaspora and Israel) and different languages and spaces of metatextual transmission and representation (e.g. cinema, television, archives and museums), the course will give an overview of the diverse landscape of Jewish memory in the Mediterranean context and beyond.

The course includes a seminar on Franco-Maghrebine Jewish literature, by prof. Marie-Pierre Ulloa (Stanford University). More info will be given at the beginning of the semester.

Students are asked to attend throughout the entire academic year the weekly classes of modern Hebrew with prof. Tsipora Baran.

- Hebrew texts given by the lecturer via Moodle.

LITERATURE
- Aharon Appelfeld, Storia di una vita (Parma: Guanda, 2008).
- Elias Canetti, La lingua salvata (Milano: Adelphi, 1991).
- Yoel Hoffmann, Cristo dei pesci (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1993).
- Giorgio Bassani, Cinque storie ferraresi (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1956).
- Jonathan Safran Foer, Eccomi (Parma: Guanda, 2017).
- Ronit Matalon, Il suono dei nostri passi (Roma: Atmosphere, 2011).
- Yishai Sarid, Il mostro della memoria (Roma: e/o, 2019).
- Eliette Abécassis, Sefardita (Roma: Tropea, 2010).

REFERENCES
- Yosef Haim Yerushalmi, Zakhor (Firenze: Giuntina, 2011).
- Cesare Segre, Semiotica filologica: testo e modelli culturali (Torino: Einaudi, 1979), 23-38.
- Marianne Hirsch, The Generation of Postmemory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 29-54.
- Jonathan Schorsch, “Disappearing Origins: Sephardic Autobiography Today”, Prooftexts, 27 (2007): 82-150.
- Dario Miccoli, a cura di, Contemporary Sephardic and Mizrahi Literature: A Diaspora (Londra: Routledge, 2017), 1-9 and 98-114.
- Patrizia Violi, Paesaggi della memoria: il trauma, lo spazio, la storia (Milano: Bompiani, 2014), 83-158.
- Karen Grumberg, Place and Ideology in Contemporary Hebrew Literature (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2011), 1-25 and 158-199.
- "The Translation Issue", AJS Perspectives, Fall 2015 (ONLY the articles by Devin E. Naar and Liora R. Halperin), online at: http://perspectives.ajsnet.org/translation-issue/ .

FILM
- Nurit Aviv, Langue sacrée, langue parlée (2008).
- other documentaries in Hebrew related to the topics of the seminar.

Students are asked to read eight Israeli and Jewish literature books. The final mark will result from the average of:
- a written exam made of: translation exercises of excerpts from the literary texts studied in class and questions on the issues discussed during the course.
- a final oral exam of Hebrew with prof. Tsipi Baran.

The course will alternate lectures and group activities of translation from Hebrew into italian, oral presentations and participation to workshops and lectures on relevant subjects.

Italian

Student unable to attend the seminar are invited to contact the lecturer at the beginning of the semester.

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Human capital, health, education" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development