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Pedagogy

The AJS is pleased to offer tools, resources, and guides for the teaching of Jewish Studies, including the following forums on teaching Jewish Studies from AJS Perspectives, articles on pedagogy from AJS News, and essays from AJS Conference sessions compiled by the AJS Pedagogy Working Group.

AJS Perspectives invites essays on pedagogy from Jewish Studies colleagues across the field. Topics have included:

»  The Justice Issue (Fall 2022)

»  The Travel Issue (Spring 2022)

»  The Art Issue (Fall 2021)

»  The Protest Issue (Spring 2021)

» The Unfinished Issue (Fall 2020)

» The Hate Issue (Spring 2020)

» The Body Issue (Fall 2019)

» Teaching Against the Patriarchy (Spring 2019)

» The Anniversary Issue: Five Decades of New Vistas in Jewish Studies (Fall 2018)

» Forum on Pedagogy: Views from Beyond Jewish Studies (Fall 2017)

» Forum on Pedagogy: Embracing Discomfort (Spring 2017)

» Directors' Forum: Administering Freedom (Fall 2016)

» » "Freedom and Collaboration," David M. Freidenreich

» » "The Freedom to Teach across Boundaries," Cecile E. Kuznitz

» » "Liberating the Conversation on Academic Freedom," Jeffrey Shoulson

» » "Jewish Studies and Academic Freedom," Todd Samuel Presner

» » "To Hillel and Back: One Jewish Studies Program’s Sojourn on the Borderline between Jewish Community Professionals and Academic Freedom," Benjamin Schreier

» What are ways that you find most useful to incorporate sound, images, or other nontextual media into your Jewish Studies classrooms? (Spring/Summer 2016)

» What is the role of language study in the undergraduate Jewish Studies curriculum? (Fall 2015)

» What film do you find most relevant to Jewish Studies? (Spring 2015)

» How should one teach "Introduction to Jewish Studies"? (Fall 2014)

» If you were to organize a graduate seminar around a single text what would it be? (Spring 2013)

» As a professor of Jewish Studies, how do you perceive your responsibility to the Jewish community? (Fall 2012)

» What is the most and least successful course you have taught? (Fall 2011)

» What are the three biggest challenges you face as director of a Jewish Studies program? (Spring 2011)

» What development in Jewish Studies over the last twenty years has most excited you? (Fall 2010)

» What are three books you love to teach to undergraduates? (Spring 2010)

AJS News Articles on Pedagogy

» "Pedagogy: AJS in the Classroom," Krista N. Dalton (June 2019)

» "Pedagogy: AJS in the Classroom," Yedida Eisenstat (June 2019)

» "Pedagogy: AJS in the Classroom," Barry Trachtenberg (June 2019)

» "Pedagogy and Disruption," Lori Hope Lefkovitz (September 2016)

» "Teaching with Footprints: Integrating Digital Humanities Projects into Our Courses," Marjorie Lehman  (September 2016)

» "Using Social and Digital Media in the Classroom," Amy Weiss (September 2016)

» "MOOCs and Jewish Studies: A Match Made in Digital Heaven," Barry Scott Wimpfheimer  (September 2016)

» "Genre-Bending Writing Assignments," Shayna Sheinfeld

» "Teaching Beyond the Canon: New Approaches to Jewish Studies," Andrea Dara Cooper (February 2016)

» "Singing Yiddish: Teaching the Students, Training the Teachers," Rakhmiel Peltz (February 2016)

» "How to Use Wikipedia to Teach Jewish Studies," Shira Klein

Conference Papers on Pedagogy

The AJS is pleased to offer the following essays that emerged from pedagogy sessions at our annual conferences. They offer hands-on teaching advice to instructors of Jewish Studies. If you have presented a pedagogy-related paper which you would like to share with other instructors, please get in touch with Ari Ariel or Shira Klein.

» "The Use of the Self in the Classroom," Phillip I. Ackerman-Lieberman (2014)

» "Some Strategies for Teaching The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln," Judith Baskin (2014)

» "Teaching with Social Media," Debra Caplan (2014)

» "Flipping a Jewish Studies Classroom," David Freidenreich | video (2014)

» "Teaching Jewish Studies in the Framework of Latin American Studies: Questions of Mediality," Naomi Lindstrom (2014)

» "Vision and Voices of Israel: The WM Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education Israel Program," Ofra Backenroth (2013)

» "Teaching Comics," Samantha Baskind (2013)

» "Expanding the Jewish Studies Classroom: Citizenship, Vulnerability, and the Trinity," Elias Sacks (2013)

» "Jewish Immigration to Latin America at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century," Adriana Huberman (2012)

» "An Argentine-Jewish Novel in a Cross-Listed Course," Naomi Lindstrom (2012)

» "The House on Chelouche Street," Ari Ariel (2011)

» "Teaching Modern Jewish Art," Samantha Baskind (2010)

» "Insiders and Outsiders in Jewish Studies," Hasia Diner (2009)

» "History and Memory in Jewish Studies," Bruce Rosenstock (2009)

AJS Directory of Course Syllabi

A directory of syllabi to assist AJS members in developing courses for the first time, and to help scholars identify new readings and assignments to incorporate into their courses. AJS member login required.