Please note that all texts studied will be provided as pdfs or are freely available online, so there are no books to buy for this module.

Week 1: Yiddish as World Literature

Apter, Emily. Extracts from “Against World Literature” (2013), in World Literature in Theory, ed. David Damrosch (Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, 2014), pp.345-62

Lempel, Blume. “The Fate of the Yiddish Writer”, in Oedipus in Brooklyn and other stories, trans. Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

Levy, Lital and Alison Schachter, “A Non-Universal Global: On Jewish Writing and World Literature”, Prooftexts 36 (2017), pp.1-26

Rosenfarb, Chava. “A Yiddish Writer Reflects on Translation”, in Confessions of a Yiddish Writer and other essays

Extracts from "WReC's Reply." Comparative Literature Studies 53.3 (2016): 535-550.

 

Week 2: Women in Yiddish literature

Jones, Faith. “How to Suppress Yiddish Women’s Writing.” In geveb, May 2022: https://ingeveb.org/blog/how-to-suppress-yiddish-womens-writing.

Klepfisc, Irena. Extracts from “Queens of Contradiction: A Feminist Introduction to Yiddish Women Writers”, in Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers, ed. Freida Forman, Ethel Raicus, Sarah Silberstein Swartz and Margie Wolfe (Toronto: Second Storey Press, 1994), pp.21-58

Lyubas, Anastasiya. “Gender, Language and Territory: The Tsushtayer literary journal in Galicia and the contributions of Yiddish women writers” Nashim, no. 37, 2020, pp. 163-184. ProQuest, http://0-search.proquest.com.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/scholarly-journals/gender-language-territory-tsushtayer-literary/docview/2475533638/se-2. [OPTIONAL]

Rosenfarb, Chava. “Feminism and Yiddish literature: A Personal Approach”, in Confessions of a Yiddish Writer and other essays

Serdatsky, Yenta. “Letters to the Editor”, trans. Cady Vishniac, in Pakn Treger, Spring 2019: "Letters to the Editor" | Yiddish Book Center

 

Week 3: Anthologization and misrepresentation

Dropkin, Celia. “Di Tsircus-dame” in four translations (Leftwich, 1939; Schulman, 1987; Hellerstein, 2001; Jones, Kronovet and Solomon, 2016).

Hellerstein, Kathryn. “Canon and Gender: Women Poets in Two Modern Yiddish Anthologies,” in Women of the Word: Jewish Women and Jewish Writing, ed. Judith R. Baskin (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 146-48.

Libkes, Dina, and Hinde Roytblat. “Selections from Yidishe dikhterins.” In geveb, March 2022: Trans. Reyzl Grace MoChridhe. https://ingeveb.org/texts-and-translations/three-poems.

Weiman-Kelman, Zohar. “Yiddish Dikhterins, Nice Jewish Girls: Creating Communities in Jewish Literary History”, in Women, Men and Books: Issues of Gender in Yiddish Discourse, ed. Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov, Studies in Yiddish 16 (Cambridge: Legenda, 2019), pp.65-79

 

Week 4: Reframing the domestic sphere

Brown, Katie. “I Need a Flat”, “Breadwinners” and “When a Woman Becomes a Person”, all in London Yiddishtown, trans. Vivi Lachs

Dunaway, Wilma A. “The Double Register of History: Situating the Forgotten Woman and Her Household in Capitalist Commodity Chains”, Journal of World-Systems Research, VII, 1, Spring 2001, 2-29

Molodowsky, Kadya. “On a Day of Rest”, “The Queen”, “The Son-in-Law” and “In a Living Room”, all in A House with Seven Windows, trans. Leah Schoolnik

Perl, Salomea. “The Canvas”, in The Canvas and other stories, trans. Ruth Murphy

 

Week 5: Work, activism and resistance

Bhattacharya, Tithi. “How Not to Skip Class: Social Reproduction and the Global Working Class”, in Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentring Oppression, ed. Tithi Bhattacharya

Blankshteyn, Chana. “An Incident” and “Colleague Sheyndele”, in Fear and other stories, trans. Anita Norich

Brokhes, Rokhl. “The Shop”, in The Exile Book of Yiddish Women Writers, ed. Frieda Johles Forman

Halpern, Frume. “Three Meetings”, in Arguing with the Storm, ed. Rhea Tregebov

Pratt, Norma Fain. “Culture and Radical Politics: Yiddish Women Writers, 1890–1940.” American Jewish History, vol. 70, no. 1, 1980, pp. 68–90.

 

Week 6: Occupying the city

Dropkin, Celia. “The Train Sings a Song” and “New York at Night by the Banks of the Hudson”, in The Acrobat: Selected Poems of Celia Dropkin, trans. Faith Jones, Jennifer Kronovet and Samuel Solomon

Jones, Faith. "Criticizing Women." Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal, vol. 13 no. 1, 2008, p. 76-81. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/236211.

Kreitman, Esther. “Clocks”, translated from Yikhes and “In the Place de la Republique”, translated from Loshn un leben

Lempel, Blume. “The Bag Lady of Seventh Avenue” and "En Route to Divorce", in Oedipus in Brooklyn and other stories, trans. Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

Vogel, Debora. “Lwów’s Jewish Quarter.” In geveb, October 2021: Trans. Jordan Lee Schnee. https://ingeveb.org/texts-and-translations/lwóws-jewish-quarter.

 

Week 7: Responding to Trauma

Hellerstein, Kathryn, 'Prayer-Poems against History: Kadya Molodowsky and Malka Heifetz Tussman', A Question of Tradition: Women Poets in Yiddish, 1586-1987 (Redwood City, CA, 2014; online edn, Stanford Scholarship Online, 21 May 2015), https://0-doi-org.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/10.11126/stanford/9780804756228.003.0007,

Korn, Rokhl. “Shadows”, in The Exile Book of Yiddish Women Writers, ed. Frieda Johles Forman

Mash, Yenta. “A Seder in the Taiga”, “Mona Bubbe”, “Alone” and “On the Landing”, in On the Landing: Stories by Yenta Mash, trans. Ellen Cassedy

Molodowsky, Kadya. “A Poem about Itself”, “Dead Sabbath”, “The Light of Your Table”, “Merciful God” and “My Language”, in Paper Bridges: Selected Poems of Kadya Molodowsky , trans. Kathryn Hellerstein

 

Week 8: Marginalized Identities in Diaspora

Gollance, Sonia. “A Dance: Fradel Shtok Reconsidered.” In geveb, December 2017: https://ingeveb.org/articles/a-dance-fradel-shtok-reconsidered.

Palatnik, Rosa. “The Yom Kippur Light Went Out”, in The House of Memory: Stories by Jewish Women Writers of Latin America, ed. Marjorie Agosín

Potash, Rikuda. “The Sad House in Talbiye” and “Rumiya and the Shofar”, in Arguing with the Storm, ed. Rhea Tregebov

Shtok, Fradl. “The Shorn Head”, in Jewish-American Literature: A Norton Anthology, pp.290-294

Shtok, Fradel. “A Dance.” In geveb, December 2017: Trans. Sonia Gollance. https://ingeveb.org/texts-and-translations/a-dance.

 

Week 9: Alternative Networks 1: London

Carr, Maurice. “Kaddish for my Mother, Esther Kreitman”, translated from Loshn un leben

Kreitman, Esther. “Nakht falt tsu iber der temze / Night falls over the Thames”, translated from Vogblatt, 28.07.39

Mirski, Rokhl. “Three Unforgettable Episodes”, “O.K.”, “Miniatures” and “The Tree Facing my Window”, all translated from Loshn un leben

Mirski, Rokhl. “Khane Rozner” and “Over the Fresh Grave of Katie Brown”, translated from Loshn un leben

 

Week 10: Alternative Networks 2: Montreal

Maze, Ida. Excepts from Dineh, in The Exile Book of Yiddish Women Writers, ed. Frieda Johles Forman

Morgentaler, Goldie. “Feminism, Creativity and Translation: Chava Rosenfarb Translates Jewish-Canadian Women Writers into Yiddish.” In geveb, July 2022: https://ingeveb.org/blog/feminism-creativity-and-translation.

Newman, Zelda K. "The Correspondence between Kadya Molodowsky and Rokhl Korn." Women in Judaism, vol. 8, no. 1, 2011, pp. 1-26.

Waddington, Miriam. “Mrs Maze’s Salon”, in in The Exile Book of Yiddish Women Writers, ed. Frieda Johles Forman

Waddington, Miriam, and Adele Wiseman. “Chava Rosenfarb’s Translations into Yiddish of Two English-Language Jewish-Canadian Writers.” In geveb, July 2022: Trans. Chava Rosenfarb. https://ingeveb.org/texts-and-translations/rosenfarb-translations.