| Northwestern launched its Jewish Studies Program in 1984 under the direction of Professor Kenneth Seeskin. Since then, thanks to the generosity of numerous benefactors and the leadership of Professor Seeskin and his successors, Professors Jacob Lassner and Benjamin Sommer, the Program has expanded steadily. Especially important in this process was the naming gift provided by the Crown family, which permitted the founding of the Center in 2000 and the hiring of additional faculty. The Center now has 17 affiliated faculty members offering approximately 40 quarter courses per year on historical, literary, philosophical, political, and religious topics, as well as in the study of Hebrew and Yiddish. Students can expect to find classes that satisfy their curiosity about nearly all dimensions of Jewish civilization, from the biblical period to the present day. Whatever the specific subject, teachers emphasize critical thinking, close analysis of texts, the evolution of ideas and themes across time, and the mutual influence of developments among Jews and the cultural and temporal settings in which these occurred.
| NewsThe Crown Center has awarded the Jill Stacey Harris Prize for the 2008-2009 academic year to Douglas Kaplan for his essay, "Godard and Film Style: Mastery of Aesthetics and Arrogance" This prize is awarded each year to the best paper submitted by a Northwestern undergraduate in the area of Jewish Studies. Kaplan, a sophomore in the School of Communication wrote the paper for Religion 339 ("The Art of Biblical Narrative"). The paper creatively rewrote a rabbinic narrative with contemporary film and music content and demonstrated a profound analytic understanding of the poetics of rabbinic narrative. The faculty committee responsible for the prize agreed that Doug found a way to inhabit an ancient form and make it speak to contemporary issues. Congratulations, Doug! Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern's new book Jews in the Russian Army, 1827-1917: Drafted into Modernity was published this fall by Cambridge University Press. On October 2, a new Jewish Studies Major was approved by the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. In Sept, 2008, the Orientation Issue of the Daily Northwestern named Marcia Gealy's Modern Jewish Literature course one of the "12 Classes You Must Enroll In before Leaving NU." (Comp Lit 279) Peter Hayes has been named the Director of the Silberman Summer Seminar at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for 2009. This intensive, two-week course on the Holocaust is for college and university instructors.
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