Polis Institute
Polis - The Jerusalem Institute of Languages and Humanities , is a non-profit academic institution whose goal is to promote the learning of ancient and Semitic languages. It is located in Musrara, near the Old City of Jerusalem.
History
In summer 2008 Christophe Rico, a Greek teacher who aimed to teach ancient languages as living ones, organised the first Polis intensive course in Greek at the University of the Holy-Cross. Intensive courses in Biblical Hebrew, Koine Greek and Latin take place each summer at the Holy-Cross university since then. One of the most special feature of the course is the use of total immersion, which is usually applied only to modern languages, in the ancient language courses.
The success of the courses in Rome drove Rico to found Polis in Jerusalem with the help of a few colleagues. In 2011 the Institute opened Modern Hebrew and Arabic classes along with ancient language courses throughout the year. At about the same time, the Institute began to organize summer course in Florida in collaboration with Ave Maria University.
In 2013, the Institute announced the opening of a Master’s programme in ancient Philology, which brought together several renowned scholars from the USA and Europe. At the same time, Polis’s activity extended to Lima and the Philippines, where Greek and Latin courses are given by Polis-trained teachers.
Method
Following the example of the Humanists of the Renaissance, Polis aims at teaching ancient languages as modern ones. Modern as well as ancient languages are taught through total language immersion: the only language used in class is the one being studied. The immersion effect is reinforced by methods such as Story Telling and Total Physical Response, which simulate the process by which infants acquire their mother tongue. The results of these methods can be seen in the way students approach the texts: while students that were trained according to the traditional school focus on the lexical and grammatical analysis to understand texts, students of the “neo-humanist” school usually have a more intuitive, direct and contextual understanding of them.
Activities
Language Courses
The Institute offers in courses in several ancient and modern languages, such as Hebrew (modern and ancient), Koine Greek, Syriac, Talmudic Aramaic and Arabic (standard and Palestinian) throughout the year in Jerusalem. In addition, every summer Polis organizes courses in ancient languages in collaboration with other institutions all over the world: Rome (Santa-Croce University), Florida (Ave Maria University), Lima (University of Piura) and the Philippines.
Academic Programmes
In 2013, a Master’s programme in Ancient philology was begun in the Institute. This program aims at providing students with linguistic training, allowing them to understand the original texts of the Bible and the Antiquity. It consists of intensive language course, as well as linguistics, paleography, history and philology.
Specialized Conferences
Each year, the Institute organizes an international conference on a topic in Humanities. These conferences bring together specialists of different aspects of the issue, with the intent to initiate a productive interdisciplinary exchange.
Urban Context
The Musrara neighbourhood, formerly a place of social and ethnic conflicts, is experiencing today a remarkable renewal: artists, intellectuals, international volunteers and workers are moving to the neighbourhood, which is becaming peaceful and multicultural. Together with other cultural institutions, such as the Art school Musrara, the School for Arabic music and the “On the Seam” Museum, Polis contributes to the rebuilding of the neighbourhood’s image. The central location of the quarter, at the crossroad of several different cultures, as well as its history and its picturesqueness, make it one of the most popular for Tourism . The Institute is located near several important research centers in Humanities, such as the EBAF, the Swedish Theological Institute and the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University, as well as to important monuments of Jerusalem: the Dome of the Rock, the City Hall and the Holy Sepulchre.