070203 SE Seminar (PM4) - Jewish Cultural Spaces in the Middle Ages (2018W)

Knowledge of the Jewish history in pre-modern Vienna; knowledge and critical analysis of various Christian and Jewish sources; knowledge of concepts, definitions and methods of Cultural Studies; active discussion, good presentation, writing of an essay according to good scientific practice.

Content and Methods:

Until the time of the Enlightenment, two Jewish communities existed in Vienna: the medieval Jewish town around today's Judenplatz and the early modern ghetto, which was assigned to the Jews "Im Werd" in today's 2nd district. Both settlements ended by expulsion, the medieval one, however, also in a brutal judicial murder.
The seminar will discuss legal, economic and social aspects of the two communities in comparison. The topics are therefore not chronologically dealt with, but juxtaposed, and discussed in the context of the geographical and cultural reference area "Ashkenaz", the German-speaking Jewish settlement in Central Europe.
Using methods of cultural studies, in particular the theories on space, various non-Jewish sources such as privileges, land registers, chronicles and documents as well as Jewish sources such as rabbinical legal opinions, historiographical texts and ego documents (in translation) are presented and analysed. Another focus is on the contact zones between the Christian majority society and the Jewish minority, also in the area of cultural transfer.