Fall 2023

This course surveys and investigates the reception of Genesis from antiquity until the early modern period in Europe, focusing on Jewish and Christian exegesis, adaptation, and application of the text.  Genesis was not only a source for doctrine, it was also a repository of foundational traditions that oriented and legitimized the cultural landscape.  Genesis laid a foundation for an overarching ideological narrative that located individuals and societies in a cosmic drama: one which pitted forces of good against forces of evil, in which human freedom was tied to a sense of terrible loss, and in which individuals and societies served as pivotal agents in the fulfillment of a historical venture.  In the context of this narrative, we will explore how identities were formed in relation to the imagined orientation of gender, family, ethnic and national division in the Genesis narratives, tracing themes as they emerge through formal commentary, literary adaptations, iconographic programs, and the visual and dramatic arts.