European Jews have never had a single culture or identity, their diversity forged by differing languages, local historical experiences and fluctuating political and economic circumstances. In this course, we will examine idiosyncratic forms of Jewish identity as expressed in the lives and careers of extraordinary Jews during the mid-19th and early 20th centuries: Benjamin Disraeli and Karl Marx, two of the most influential figures of 19th century politics; Isaac Babel and Marcel Proust, who left exceptional and nuanced literary legacies in Russia and France; Gustav Mahler, Arthur Schoenberg and Marc Chagall, who expressed distinctively strong Jewish identities in their extensive musical and visual artistic output.

We analyze these “Jewish identities” via an array of critically important essays from scholars such as Isaiah Berlin, Cynthia Ozick and Leon Botstein amongst others, provided in pdf form.