Prof. Phil Lieberman
27 teaching hours, equivalent to 3 ECTS
Phillip I. Lieberman is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and Law, Associate Professor of Classical and Mediterranean Studies, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, and Affiliated Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and History, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. A social, economic, and legal historian of Jewish life in the medieval period in the lands of Islam, his 2014 book The Business of Identity: Jews, Muslims, and Economic Life in Medieval Egypt (Stanford University Press) was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. His current research examines and challenges the received wisdom regarding Jewish urbanization under early Islamic regimes and subsequent migration of Jews from Iraq to the Islamic Mediterranean.
This course inductively introduces students to the study of the Talmud, the canon of rabbinic texts central to Rabbinic Judaism. Through the study of specific texts, students will become familiar both with the details of particular rabbinic debates—such as the biblical source(s) for prayer and the regulations surrounding the lighting of Hannukah lights—as well as more generally with modes of talmudic argumentation and logic. The course will also address questions of history, historical context, and textual development as they arise.
