19. Century science and medicine described the Jewish body either as deviant, ugly and sick - or as healthy, beautiful and noble. In any case Jews were perceived as different according to "racial science".
Objective
In this course we will deal with images and stereotypes of Jewish bodies in scientific discourse, popular culture, art, literature and propaganda, and the Jewish reaction to them. Among the topics discussed are popular fictive figures of beauty and ugliness, such as Lessing's noble Nathan, Shakespeare's Shylock or Kafka's animal figures. Towards the end of the class we will turn to more recent phenomena like the films of Woody Allen and Sacha Baron Cohen.