Students and staff

Study courses

The Center for Judaic Studies, in cooperation with the faculties of the University of Latvia (UL), has elaborated and initiated a wide variety of study courses. The following courses are currently offered:

  • From 2020, the Center for Judaic Studies offers a part C study course "Holocaust in Latvian Culture". The course is taught by Claims Conference University Partnership in Holocaust Studies Lecturer Dr. sc. comm. Didzis Bērziņš. During the course, the students familiarise themselves with the reasons and the chronology of the Holocaust in Latvia and in the world, discuss the interaction between the modern communication environment and culture, as well as the viability of supranational stories in the space of a national memory. The course has been funded by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference).
     
  • Bachelor's programme in History at the Faculty of History and Philosophy includes a B part study course "The History of Jews in Latvia" (in two parts). The course is taught by Dr. habil. hist., prof. Aivars Stranga.
     
  • The Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies at the Faculty of Humanities offers a study course "Ethnocultural Stereotype in Slavonic Literature and Folklore". Through the prism of ethnocultural stereotype about Jews, found in Slavonic literature and folklore, it allows to analyse the concept of "Others". The course is taught by Dr. philol. Svetlana Pogodina.

Cooperation within the study programmes of other faculties:

  • From 2018, our Center offers classes for Political Science students of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the UL, taught by a visitng lecturer from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
     
  • Rabbi guest lectures are offered within the framework of the study course "Introduction to Judaism" at the Faculty of Theology of the UL.
     
  • In collaboration with the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies at the Faculty of Humanities, lecture series in film studies on Jewish subjects are offered. Each lecture is accompanied by a film screening that complements the talk’s topic.