HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 2nd degree (Master)

Responsible Department: Spanish & Lat. Amer. Studies

Semester: 1st Semester

Teaching Languages: English

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: James N Green

Coordinator Email: James_Green@brown.edu

Coordinator Office Hours:

Teaching Staff:
Prof mariano plotkin

Course/Module description:
In this course we will engage in a concise consideration of the history of Arabs and Jews in Brazil from early Portuguese colonial rule to the present, focusing primarily on the history of immigration from the mid-nineteenth century. We will examine the North African Jewish immigration in the mid-nineteenth century, the movement of Lebanese and Syrians Christians and Muslims to Brazil in the late nineteenth century that in many ways parallels the immigration of Eastern European Jews in the early twentieth-century. We will consider the formation of communities and institutions over the course of the last hundred years and study Brazil’s foreign policy to the Middle East. Finally, we will study the Arab and Jewish communities of Jews in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.

Course/Module aims:
This course is designed to strengthen your skills in critical reading, reflective writing, and articulate discussion about complex historical and cultural issues. It is a special opportunity for you to participate in an in-depth consideration of a specific topic through engaged reading, active discussion in the classroom, analytical viewing of media, and reflective writing on assigned topics.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
This will include learning or strengthening the following skills:
• How to read historical narratives (secondary sources) carefully and critically to understand different scholars’ arguments and their interpretations of history;
• How to articulate a wide-ranging understanding of the complex interplay of diverse economic, social, political, and cultural phenomena in a specific historical moment;
• How to view and think analytically about the ways films are used as a means of communicating specific narratives about a given culture and its historical context;
• How to understand and interpret documents and other material (primary sources) produced contemporaneously to a period under investigation as a means of understanding political, economic, social, and cultural events and processes;
• How to use secondary sources about Brazilian history in the colonial, imperial, republican periods as a means of contextualizing and understanding the history of Arabs and Jews in Brazil.

Attendance requirements(%):
Students must attend all classroom meetings, do all of the assigned reading, participate dynamically in the discussion of all of the assignments, and attend at least three sessions of the International Symposium, “International Perspectives on Multiculturalism, Inclusion and the Other: Brazil, Israel, and Palestine,” that will take place at the Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Sunday-Tuesday, January 14-16.

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: Seminar discussion of weekly readings

Course/Module Content:
Course Schedule and Assignments:

Week #1 Introduction to Course
Dec. 13 Introduction of students and goals of course.
● Primary document No. 1: Wikipedia: Arab Brazilians; Lebanese Brazilians
● Primary document No. 2: Marcos Moraes, “Seven Things to Know about the Jews of Brazil,” Jewish Telegraph (August 2, 2016).

Week #2 Iberia, Arabs and Jews
Dec. 20
● Article No. 1: Anna Akasoya, “Convivencia and Its Discontents: Interfaith Life in Al-Andalus” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3 (August 2010), pp. 489-499.
● Article No. 2: Bruno Feitler, “Jews and New Christians in Dutch Brazil, 1630-1654”, 123-51. In Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500-1800, eds. Richard L. Kagan and Philip D. Morgan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2009.

Week #3 Coming to “America”

● Article 3: Jeffrey Lesser, “(Re) Creating Ethnicities: Middle-Eastern Immigration to Brazil.” The Americas 53, no. 1 (July 1996): 45-65.
● Article 4: Oswaldo Truzzi, “The Right Place at the Right Time: Syrians and Lebanese in Brazil and the United States, A Comparative Approach.” Journal of American Ethnic History. 16, No. 2 (Winter, 1997): 3-34.

Week #4 Moroccan Jews and the Amazon Rubber Boom
Jan. 3
● Article 5: Susan Gilson Miller, “Kippur on the Amazon: Jewish Emigration from Northern Morocco in the Late Nineteenth-century.” In Sephardi and Middle-Eastern Jewries: History and Culture in the Modern Era. Harvey E. Goldberg, ed., Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 190-209.
● Article 6: Thomas T. Orum, “The Women of the Open Door: Jews in the Belle Epoque Amazonian Demimonde, 1890–1920” Shofar, Vol. 19, No. 3, Special Issue: The Jewish Diaspora of Latin America (Spring 2001): 86-99.

Week #5 Comtemporary Ethnicities in Brazil
Jan. 10
● Article 7: Paulo Pinto, “Arab Ethnicity and Diasporic Islam: A Comparative Approach to Processes of Identity Formation and Religious Codification in the Muslim Communities in Brazil.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 32, no. 2 (2011): 312-30.
● Article 8: Jeffrey Lesser, “Jewish Brazilians or Brazilian Jews? A Reflection on Brazilian Ethnicity.” Shofar, Vol. 19, No. 3, Special Issue: The Jewish Diaspora of Latin America (Spring 2001): 65-72.

Week #6

International Symposium
Sun. Jan. 14
• 14:30-15:15, Keynote speaker: What is multiculturalism?
• 15:30-17:30, Panel No. 1: Subjectivity and Multiculturalism

Mon. Jan. 15
• 10:00-12:00, Panel No. 2: Violence and Inequality in Multicultural Societies
• 13:30-15:30: Panel No. 3: The Challenges of Affirmative Action
• 15:45-18:00: Panel No. 4: National Narratives and International Relations

Tues. Jan. 16
• 10:00-12:00 Panel No. 5: Native Peoples and their Historical Rights
• 13:30-15:30 Panel No 6: Public Policy and Social Inclusion

Final Class Brazil in the Middle East
Wed. Jan. 17
● Article 9: Celso Amorim, “Brazil and the Middle East: Reflections on Lula’s South-South Cooperation.” Cairo Review no. 2 (2011).

Required Reading:
1. Primary document No. 1: Wikipedia: Arab Brazilians; Lebanese Brazilians
2. Primary document No. 2: Marcos Moraes, “Seven Things to Know about the Jews of Brazil,” Jewish Telegraph (August 2, 2016).
3. Article No. 1: Anna Akasoya, “Convivencia and Its Discontents: Interfaith Life in Al-Andalus” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3 (August 2010), pp. 489-499.
4. Article No. 2: Bruno Feitler, “Jews and New Christians in Dutch Brazil, 1630-1654”, 123-51. In Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500-1800, eds. Richard L. Kagan and Philip D. Morgan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2009.
5. Article 3: Jeffrey Lesser, “(Re) Creating Ethnicities: Middle-Eastern Immigration to Brazil.” The Americas 53, no. 1 (July 1996): 45-65.
6. Article 4: Oswaldo Truzzi, “The Right Place at the Right Time: Syrians and Lebanese in Brazil and the United States, A Comparative Approach.” Journal of American Ethnic History. 16, No. 2 (Winter, 1997): 3-34.
7. Article 5: Susan Gilson Miller, “Kippur on the Amazon: Jewish Emigration from Northern Morocco in the Late Nineteenth-century.” In Sephardi and Middle-Eastern Jewries: History and Culture in the Modern Era. Harvey E. Goldberg, ed., Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 190-209.
8. Article 6: Thomas T. Orum, “The Women of the Open Door: Jews in the Belle Epoque Amazonian Demimonde, 1890–1920” Shofar, Vol. 19, No. 3, Special Issue: The Jewish Diaspora of Latin America (Spring 2001): 86-99.
9. Article 7: Paulo Pinto, “Arab Ethnicity and Diasporic Islam: A Comparative Approach to Processes of Identity Formation and Religious Codification in the Muslim Communities in Brazil.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 32, no. 2 (2011): 312-30.
10. Article 8: Jeffrey Lesser, “Jewish Brazilians or Brazilian Jews? A Reflection on Brazilian Ethnicity.” Shofar, Vol. 19, No. 3, Special Issue: The Jewish Diaspora of Latin America (Spring 2001): 65-72.
Article 9: Celso Amorim, “Brazil and the Middle East: Reflections on Lula’s South-South Cooperation.” Cairo Review no. 2 (2011).

Additional Reading Material:

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 25 %
Project work 30 %
Assignments 20 %
Reports 15 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 10 %
Film reflectins

Additional information: