BIB 569 Text and Theory
No matter what one’s professional engagement or academic discipline, we have all been touched by recent developments in literary theory. This course takes the questions of literary theory and asks how they might influence one’s reading of Jewish sources, both historical and literary, from a variety of eras. Some of the questions we address are: Is it possible to retrieve the meanings of ancient texts according to the author’s original intent? Is authorial intent relevant to our reading of a text? How does gender, religion, economic structures, values, ideology, shape the ways we determine meaning? Are all texts-and all acts of reading-ideologically motivated? Theoretical readings may cover structuralism, deconstructionism, post-modernism, Marxism, feminism, psychoanalytic theory, gender theory, cultural criticism, etc. Primary sources range from biblical to early modern (in Hebrew and in translation).