The Zhargon Speaker Series starts on Sunday (November 17) 2024! Since the Zhargon: A Journey through the Histories of Yiddishkayt course started back in 2021, for each cohort, we extend and open our classroom learning to a series of public, online lectures that broaden our perspectives of Yiddish history and culture.
This winter, we have an amazing group of scholars and artists lined up.
Sunday, November 17th (5-6:30pm PST): Anna Elena Torres on "Anarchism by Our Grandmothers"
Kicking off the series on Sunday, November 17th, Dr. Anna Elena Torres will discuss the fascinating feminist genealogies of Yiddish anarchism. Torres will present a chapter of her new book Horizons Blossom, Borders Vanish: Anarchism in Yiddish Literature (2024), which examines Yiddish anarchist aesthetics from the nineteenth-century Russian proletarian immigrant poets through the modernist avant-gardes of Warsaw, Chicago, and London to contemporary antifascist composers.
The book also traces Jewish anarchist strategies for negotiating surveillance, censorship, detention, and deportation, revealing the connection between Yiddish modernism and struggles for free speech, women’s bodily autonomy, and the transnational circulation of avant-garde literature.
Dr. Anna Elena Torres is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Comparative Literature and Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. Torres is the author of Horizons Blossom, Borders Vanish: Anarchism and Yiddish Literature (Yale University Press, 2024) and co-editor of With Freedom in Our Ears: Histories of Jewish Anarchism (University of Illinois Press, 2023).
Currently, Torres is writing a book titled The Dancing Bear: Animality in Yiddish Arts and Literature, which explores representations of the bear as a liminal figure – wild, half-tamed, or dancing – in folklore, painting, and modernist literature. Her creative practice has included work as a community muralist, contributor in the Venice Biennale’s Yiddishland Pavilion (2022), and commissioned artist by the POLIN Museum, Warsaw.
Sunday, November 24th (11am-12:30pm PST): Vivi Lachs on "London's Yiddish Pop Songs"
In the second lecture in the Zhargon Speaker Series, Dr. Vivi Lachs will tell the fascinating story of the London Yiddish stage at the turn of the 20th century, when Yiddish pop songs offered a glimpse into the experience of Jewish immigration to Britain from a grassroots perspective.
Using humour and satire, their poignant, funny, and sometimes surprising lyrics tell of a community in transition, battling with religious, emotional and ideological hurdles as women and men integrated into British life. This talk will situate the songs in London’s Yiddish theatre/music hall, and analyse a few in detail to consider how they engaged with political debates of the day, at the same time as entertaining a rather diverse audience.
Vivi Lachs is a historian of the Jewish East End, a research fellow at Queen Mary University and Yiddish performer. Her books include Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse and London Yiddishtown: East End Jewish Life in Yiddish Sketch and Story. She founded the Great Yiddish Parade, is the vice chair of the Yiddish Café Trust and leads tours of the Yiddish East End. She sings, records and composes with Klezmer Klub (Whitechapel, mayn vaytshepl) and Katsha’nes (Don’t Ask Silly Questions).
Sunday, December 1st (5-6:30pm PST): Avia Moore on "The Critical Mythology of Yiddishland"
In this session, the third in the Zhargon Speaker Series, Dr. Avia Moore will invite us to think about the term "Yiddishland" itself, which is often used to describe the network of people, projects, and events that make up the contemporary Yiddish cultural scene.
Together we will read and discuss texts that reveal several distinct but interconnected categories of use, including Yiddishland as nation, Yiddishland as lost homeland, and Yiddishland as cultural space. Paying attention to cultural imaginaries, we will bring a critical lens to the term in both historical and contemporary usage, analyzing its relationship to nation, borders, and networks, and seeking a definition that holds space for difference while activating networks of solidarity and support.
Dr. Avia Moore is the Artistic Director of KlezKanada and has worked extensively as a creative producer with festivals and cultural organizations across North America as well as on individual artistic projects in North America and Europe.
Avia holds a PhD in Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies from York University. Her current research examines how the postvernacularity of the contemporary Yiddish cultural scene creates the space for a subjective, relative, and contingent relationship with Yiddish cultural practices, and reflects on the importance of integrating critical thinking tools into the pedagogy and transmission of cultural practice. An internationally-acclaimed teacher of Yiddish dance, Avia Moore leads Yiddish dance workshops for festivals and events around the world, coaches emerging dance leaders, and works as a consultant for choreographers, directors, and teachers seeking to engage with Yiddish movement.
Sunday, December 8th (5-6:30pm PST): Faith Jones on "Recovering Yiddish Women Writers"
The fourth talk of the Zhargon Speaker Series, Peretznik Faith Jones will examine the unflinching works of Yiddish writer Shira Gorshman, who, despite her large body of work (including ten books published across five decades and three countries), is little known even within Yiddish circles.
This lecture will look at Gorshman's work and ask why she was forgotten, and why a revival of interest in her is now underway. We will examine some of the recurring themes in her work, and ask questions about how literary history is created.
Faith Jones is a librarian, translator, and researcher of Yiddish culture in Vancouver. She is a member of the Digital Yiddish Theatre Project, which brings primary source material and accessible inquiry to the public sphere. Her book of translations of Shira Gorshman’s stories, Meant to Be and Other Stories, was recently released by White Goat Press. She is a co-translator of The Acrobat (Tebot Bach, 2014), a selection of the poetry of Celia Dropkin, and she created supertitles for the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s new production of Kadya Molodowsky’s genre-defying, futuristic play “Ale fentster tsu der zun” (All Windows Face the Sun).
Jones' research on Yiddish language activism in Winnipeg and Vancouver has been published in scholarly journals. Her recent essay “How to Suppress Yiddish Women’s Writing” responds to the current state of scholarly denial of the rich, complex history of women’s literary culture.
Get Tickets for the Zhargon Speaker Series 2024!
You can attend this incredible series of online lectures live to hear from leading Yiddish scholars and artists on an array of topics! Tickets for the Zhargon Speaker Series 2024 are available for $10 to support the speakers:
Anna Elena Torres, "Anarchism by Our Grandmothers: Feminist Genealogies of Yiddish Anarchism" (Nov. 17)
Vivi Lachs, "London's Yiddish Pop Songs: Telling Secrets of the Immigrant Experience" (Nov. 24)
Avia Moore, "The Critical Mythology of Yiddishland" (Dec. 1)
Faith Jones, "Recovering Yiddish Women Writers: Shira Gorshman and the Making of Literary History" (Dec. 8)
Current students in the Zhargon course attend for free, and Zhargon alumni get 20% off -- just contact Itamar if you don't have the promo code. See you soon!
Comments