Some of My Best Friends are Jewish … Still!

Tuesdays 9:30am-11:45am: April 30th and May 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th and June 4th,  2019 (with a short break mid-class)

Early Bird Special: Register early and save! Please note that places are limited and will be reserved on a ‘first pay, first served basis’. All reservations received and accepted by April 23, 2019 will get a $15 discount. The Early Bird fee for this 6-week course is $130/student (regular fee $145).

Sonia Halpern is an Art Historian, and teaches in Western University’s Departments of English and Writing Studies, and Women’s Studies and Feminist Research. Sonia has received numerous honours and awards for her teaching, and has been recognized as one of Western’s most “Popular Profs.” She is the author of two collections of poetry, a book of original musical compositions, and multiple academic articles. Her most recent publication reflects her combined interest in issues of Jewish identity and police/correctional institutions, and is entitled “A Yiddishe Cop: Jewish Identity, Police, and Prisoners in Contemporary Law Enforcement,” in The Criminal Humanities, eds. Michael Arntfield and Marcel Danesi (New York: Peter Lang), 2016.  Sonia has taught courses for AJE since its inception, and has a passion for offering the Jewish perspective on a variety of art historical periods and styles.  

Some of My Best Friends are Jewish … Still! 

This course reviews some of the highlights and builds upon the previous AJE course “Some of My Best Friends are Jewish: Non-Jewish Artists and the Jews in their Lives.” Classes will examine brand new selected artist/model relationships in which Jewish figures are key subjects in paintings and photography.  Moreover, the course will introduce you to some additional personal relationships between non-Jewish artists and the Jews in their lives. These pairings will reveal the instrumental ways that Jewish individuals contributed to the art-world in a capacity other than as artists themselves.