Courses

Modern Yiddish culture and literature developed and flourished in the so-called Yiddishland, a land without borders located in Eastern Europe across Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Rumania, etc. But the heart of Yiddishland was in prewar Poland: in Warsaw, Vilnius (now Lithuania), Krakow, and Lublin. 

The course will center on four cities in which Yiddish culture and literature blossomed before the Holocaust, and examine key figures of modern Yiddish literature associated with these places, such as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Kadya Molodowsky, Mordechai Gebirtig, Abraham Sutzkever, Yankev Glatshtayn, and others. Employing gender and comparative approach as analytical lenses, we address the following questions: What role does space play in culture production? How does our familiarity with space impact our perception of literature and culture?

The texts and class discussion will be in English. The course will have a digital humanities component: we will engage in Mapping Yiddish Europe through Locus Tempus.