Course description
Recent decades have seen radical reshaping of the relationships of the three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. We have witnessed new conflicts among their proponents but also renewed efforts at interreligious dialogue and unprecedented solidarity. Joint communal responses of Christians, Jews and Muslims to the Covid-19 crisis testify to the vitality of the new collaborations.

Yet, do Christians, Jews and Muslims really know each other? The Abrahamic religions are all based in sacred texts, containing revealed truth, and have legal and interpretive traditions elucidating them. Do we know these texts? Do we know how they each read them? This course seeks to introduce Christian, Jewish, and Islamic texts, so that students explore and engage in conversation the three Abrahamic intellectual traditions. We seek to understand the texts on their own terms, within their contexts of origin and transmission, and explore their social and political working throughout history. By the end of the semester, participants will have acquired basic literacy in the three religions and habits of reflection that will prepare them for engagement with the religious world of the other Abrahamic traditions.

Venice has been a center of Mediterranean Christian civilization for two millennia but, as a port city, it has served also as a gateway for European interaction with the Muslim world. In the early modern period, Venice was the site of a flourishing Jewish culture, and a tolerant urban culture encouraging the formation of hybrid religious philosophies. The course will recapture the spirit of early Venetian dialogues in a twenty-first century scholarly mode.

Learning outcomes
Students will be able to:
Speak with some familiarity about the foundational texts and traditions of the three Abrahamic religions.
Understand how Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions address moral and political questions.
Compare and contrast Jewish, Christian and Islamic approaches to moral and political questions.
Develop a historically informed account of interfaith relations.
Deploy hermeneutical strategies for reading religious texts.

Teaching and evaluation methods
Weekly posts (reading analysis) – 35%
Weekly posts due 24 hours before class. Posts should ideally result in an exchange among students.
Class Participation – 25%
Class attendance is required in all seminars.
Classes will feature either seminar-style PowerPoint presentations, interspersed by discussion. Active class participation is crucial, regularly evaluated, and graded twice, at midterm and end of course.
Midterm Group Project – 20%
PowerPoint Presentation of a topic by a group of 3-5
Final Oral Exam – 20% (A written exam under supervision may be requested.)
A synthetic question, several questions distributed before for students to prepare.

Use of AI is prohibited. Posts are regularly checked against AI tools and violators will receive reduced or no grade.

Bibliography:
The Jewish Study Bible, ed. by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Christian Bible: New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), Oxford University Press.
Safi Kaskas & David Hungerford, The Qur’an – with References to the Bible: A Contemporary Understanding. Bridges of Reconciliation Press.
Carl Ernst, How to Read the Qur’an. The University of North Carolina Press.
Caputo, Nina and Liz Clarke. Debating Truth: The Barcelona Disputation of 1263: A Graphic History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, or: On Religious Power and Judaism, trans. Allan Arkush (Hanover and London: University Press of New England.
Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz: A Memoir. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Last updated: June 12, 2025