Yiddish

This course offers an introduction to the language that has been spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews for more than a millennium, and an opportunity to discover a fabulous world of Yiddish literature, language and culture in a fun way. Using games, new media, and music, we will learn how to speak, read, listen and write in a language that is considered one of the richest languages in the world (in some aspects of vocabulary). We will also venture outside the classroom to explore the Yiddish world today: through field trips to Yiddish theater, Yiddish-speaking neighborhoods, Yiddish organizations, such as YIVO or Yiddish farm, and so on. We will also have Yiddish-speaking guests and do a few digital projects. At the end of the two-semester course, you will be able to converse in Yiddish on a variety of everyday topics and read most Yiddish literary and non-literary texts. Welcome to Yiddishland!

This course offers an introduction to the language that has been spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews for more than a millennium, and an opportunity to discover a fabulous world of Yiddish literature, language and culture in a fun way. Using games, new media, and music, we will learn how to speak, read, listen and write in a language that is considered one of the richest languages in the world (in some aspects of vocabulary). We will also venture outside the classroom to explore the Yiddish world today: through field trips to Yiddish theater, Yiddish-speaking neighborhoods, Yiddish organizations, such as YIVO or Yiddish farm, and so on. We will also have Yiddish-speaking guests and do a few digital projects. At the end of the two-semester course, you will be able to converse in Yiddish on a variety of everyday topics and read most Yiddish literary and non-literary texts. Welcome to Yiddishland!

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.