Modernist Yiddish Poetry between Languages and Selfhoods
Sat, Feb 04
|Zoom
Corbin Allardice will speak about translation, multilingualism, identity, and (un)belonging in modern Yiddish poetry.


Time & Location
Feb 04, 2023, 4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. PST
Zoom
Event Description
The first guest lecture in the 2023 Zhargon Speaker Series is Corbin Allardice, who will present her talk Shpigl af a shteyn [Mirror on a Stone]: Modernist Yiddish poetry between languages and selfhoods.
In preparation for the lecture, Corbin kindly shared with us a number of materials that she recommends reviewing beforehand (PDFs provided to attendees):
Yiddish Poetry Reading Pack, containing a collection of modernist Yiddish poetry, in the original Yiddish, as well as in translation and transliteration (PDFs provided). Corbin asked that you choose a poem that you like and try reading it out loud (either by reading the Yiddish or transliteration) as an exercise before the talk. For a key to Yiddish transliteration in Latin characters, check out this link.
Benjamin and Barbara Harshav's essay on "Yiddish Language and Literature" from American Yiddish Poetry (1986). This is a good general introduction on the topic of modern Yiddish poetry.
Two additional optional texts, recommended for those who want to dig deeper into contemporary discussions on Yiddish culture, language and literature: "Yiddish Science and the Postmodern" by Jonathan Boyarin, and "A Taytsh Manifesto: Yiddish, Translation, and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture" by Saul Zaritt.

Corbin Allardice is a Yiddish translator, writer, actor, and educator based in New York. Corbin was a 2020-2021 Translation Fellow at the Yiddish Book Center working on the poetry of Rikle Glezer and a 2018-2019 Helix Fellow. Her research centers on questions of translation, multilingualism, identity, and (un)belonging in modern Yiddish poetry, thematics which her own work as a writer-translator attempts to continue into our post-vernacular present. Please check out her work on her wonderful blog Taytshworks.
Event Image: Photograph of Yiddish poets Alter Kacyzne, Peretz Markish, Moyshe Broderzon, c. 1920-1930 (Wikimedia Commons)