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Jewish Tradition and Abortion: What Does Judaism Say?  Thu, Apr 20, 2023 In view of the recent Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade, the issue of abortion has rightfully garnered considerable public attention. This session will focus on both classical Jewish sources and modern Jewish religious writings (Liberal and Orthodox) on abortion to clarify...

What is poetry, and what is it good for? Today, poetry is often pronounced dead. Yet at the same time, we remain, to cite the New York Times, “poetry curious.” We sense, as Aimé Césaire sensed, that poetry encompasses some “greater feeling” that goes uncaptured by scientific classification and explanation. For Audre Lorde, poetry is...

Society and the Spirit of Capitalism: an Introduction to Max Weber Max Weber sought to explain nothing less than the emergence of the modern world and the direction in which it was headed. A trailblazer (along with Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim) of the modern discipline of sociology, Weber brought to bear empirically driven methods of comparative analysis...

Theorizing Repression: From Psychoanalysis to Counterinsurgency Theory “The individual’s dangerous desire for aggression,” theorized Sigmund Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents, can only be “disarmed” by the establishment of “an agency within him to watch over it, like a garrison in a conquered city.” For some, Freud’s...

While contemporary political discourse is often characterized by heated discussions of liberalism or fascism, socialism or “populism”, the broad category of “conservative” thought seems to take a back seat. This despite its enduring relevance not only for understanding political history and the history of political thought, but also as an analytical...

Jorge Luis Borges’ fiction is uniquely powerful for its captivating amalgam of political, mystical, and metaphysical themes. In this course, an introduction to Borges’ most canonical works, we’ll read his great short story collections Ficciones and The Aleph, as well as the essay collection Other Inquisitions—bearing in...

Rabbi Samantha Frank’s The Incredible Women of the Bible The women of the Bible are complex, crafty, and sometimes mysterious. Together, we’ll explore a few of their stories and consider what lessons we can learn for our lives today. Come with a sense of open inquiry! No prior Jewish study required — all genders welcome.

Pornography is one of humanity’s oldest, and most enduring artifacts. Variously celebrated and demonized, it has decorated sumptuous palaces and been furtively sold under pain of arrest. In the modern United States, it is kept studiously out of sight, and yet is simultaneously omnipresent and accessible in its most explicit forms with a simple click...

Emigrating from the European periphery to its intellectual center, Julia Kristeva exploded like a bomb onto the insular world of French theory. Her first book, Revolution in Poetic Language, put forth a wholly new understanding of human communication—insisting on the non-linguistic rhythmic dimension that undergirds all language. Her emphasis...

In recent years, there has been unprecedented growth in the visibility and sheer number of people who identify with a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth. Trans life and, with it, a whole world of trans culture—aesthetics, style, taste—has broken from the margins into the mainstream. This new generation of “gender subversives”...

Have you ever thought about turning your life’s trials and tribulations into a NY Times bestseller? In this five-week Online Memoir Writing Workshop, Erika Schickel (2 Memoirs, LA Times) will share her secrets for turning your life’s twists and turns into lively drama! Her fun, all new in-class exercises will help you infuse your most fascinating...

This 4-part series will introduce participants to the various ways in which dance/movement therapy can be used for social change. Students will get a brief overview of the history of activism in dance/movement therapy through mental health policy, research, and performance. Participants will also engage in embodying their vision of social change....

Is the novel an intrinsically modern form? Are prose works like Satyricon, Daphnis and Chloe, and The Golden Ass actually ancient novels? These narratives of ancient Greece and Rome offer a kaleidoscopic array of fictions: pastoral tales of erotic exploration; fierce satires of urban life and aristocratic rapacity; fantastical accounts...

In the Footsteps of Peace Pilgrims:  Reclaiming the Sacred Art of Pilgrimage Since time immemorial, seekers have been called to pilgrimage. Religious and spiritual traditions the world-over include pilgrimage among their practices. Sacred activists count marches and solidarity walks as a form of pilgrimage; some heed the call to pilgrim in nature...

Angels are messengers and Beings of Light consciousness, part of the universal life force that connects all beings. Angels actively help in cosmic evolution and your own path in the cosmic plan. Find out what an angel’s role is and why they contact you. Discover the power of Light beings— angels, devas, and meleks— who guard and attend to you....