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This seminar probes Jews’ relationship to visual culture and mass media, which has long been stereotyped and misunderstood. We will ask: How and why did the arts and media industries offer Jews social mobility? How do different media enable assimilation, passing, or stereotyping? How and when have Jews used visual media to assert their identity, including by aligning with other minorities? Students will critically analyze a range of visual material – including photographs, illustrated publications, films, and television – and read the latest work by historians, art historians, and media studies scholars on representation and the Jewish experience in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.