Course:	HEB 101  Hebrew Language and Culture
Professor:	Vanessa Boettiger
CRN:	90217	Schedule:	Mon Tue Wed Thurs    10:20 AM - 11:10 PM Olin 302
Distributional Area:	FL Foreign Languages and Lit	Class cap:	12
Credits:	4

Cross-listed:  Jewish Studies; Middle Eastern Studies

This introductory course will treat learning Hebrew as the study of both language and culture. Students will cover basic linguistic skills - reading, writing, and speaking - while engaging with a wide variety of texts and other media from across the many-thousand-year history of Hebrew in diaspora and modern Israel, from antiquity until our day. No background knowledge or exposure is required; individual interests - in topics as diverse and interdisciplinary as Biblical and Rabbinic literature, mystic alphabets, socialist folk songs, contemporary cinema and Hebrew's many mutually enriching bilingual entanglements (e.g. Yiddish, Arabic) - are encouraged. By semester's end, it is hoped that students will have acquired the foundation necessary for further language study, while also having immersed themselves in the oceanic literary, musical, visual, artistic, religious, and secular traditions (etc.!) conducted in Hebrew.