Bavli and Halakhic Literature on Birth and Sexuality I

This course will focus on rabbinic texts from the Babylonian Talmud and Jewish legal writings surrounding the legal and phenomenological understanding of several topics related to birth and sexuality, including rituals for Jewish newborns, evolving notions of ethical and sacred physical intimacy, and the determination of religious and gender identities. Texts will be studied primarily in their original Aramaic and Hebrew, and students will explore how rabbinic authors employed language to convey their ideas and what values and hermeneutical principles guided the formation of these texts.