Affiliated Departments & Programs

Miriam Dean-Otting joined the faculty in 1984. In addition to RLST 101 and 103: Women and Religion, she teaches courses in Jewish Studies, including The Judaic Tradition, Modern Judaism, Jews in Literature and occasionally The Holocaust. She teaches Religion and Nature and lectures in ENVS 112 annually. She also teaches a course on the Hebrew scriptures and a topical course called Prophecy. She offers classical Hebrew as an independent study.

Her research interests lie in the intersections between Jews and the non-Jewish cultures in which Jews have made their home. Her publications have focused on Hellenistic Jewry, Jews in Germany and Central Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and in conflict resolution and dialogue between Jews and Arabs in modern Israel. She has engaged in a study of the Jewish community of Calcutta (Kolkata), India.

Education

1983 — Doctor of Philosophy from Hebrew Union College, OH

1974 — Bachelor of Arts from Kenyon College

Courses Recently Taught

Prophets were the messengers of justice and social responsibility in antiquity. This course poses the question: Are there contemporary prophets? We will first focus on the origins of prophecy in the Ancient Near East before exploring a number of contemporary writers. Max Weber, Victor Turner, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Cornel West and Martin Buber will provide theoretical perspectives. We will examine the role of biblical prophets (Amos, Isaiah, Micah and others) and the prophetic roles of Jesus and Muhammad. Topics addressed will include, but are not limited to: poverty, civil rights, inequities in American education, healthy communities and responsible environmental practices. We will fully integrate our academic study with our engagement in the community. In the last two-thirds of the semester we will study a selection of modern voices on current social issues. Possibilities include but are not limited to: Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, bell hooks, Jonathan Kozol, Wendell Berry, Arundhati Roy, Bob Marley, June Jordan and Aharon Shabtai. This class incorporates community engaged learning as an integral part of the course. Students will get course credit for volunteering in Knox County institutions in, for example, food security, health, education, or parks and recreation. We will fully integrate our academic study with our engagement in the community. This counts as an elective for the major. Prerequisite: sophomore standing. Offered every two years.