Modern Hebrew: Ideology, Politics, and the Miracle of Revival

The focus of this course is to introduce students to the history of Hebrew as a modern language. This will be achieved by reading academic and literary texts and examining other media, such as films and plays. We will focus on the revival of the language, paying close attention to the centrality of language ideology in Israeli society and culture. The conflicting historical narratives of the revival period play a role in Israel's political life up to this day, almost 150 years after the revival of spoken Hebrew. We will examine conflicting interpretations of the historical facts: Was the revival an unparalleled miracle? A unique case of diglossia elimination? Or a natural process of creolization? (HEBM 0301 or equivalent)