Isaac Bashevis Singer – Jewish Storyteller and Iconoclast

Max Weinreich Fellowship Lecture in Eastern European Jewish Studies The Workers Circle/Dr. Emanuel Patt Visiting Professorship in Eastern European Jewish Studies Admission: Free

Through a presentation of his early fiction and criticism published in Warsaw journals 1925-1933, this lecture will delineate the beginnings of Yitskhok Bashevis as a Yiddish storyteller. These writings launched him into the world of Yiddish letters as an neo-conservative iconoclast with a unique artistic approach to gender, sexuality, supernaturalism and politics. The development of I.B. Singer’s translation practice from Yiddish to English will be discussed, as well as the increasing importance of his bilingual work from the mid-1950s. Additionally, the ways in which Singer’s iconoclasm was ultimately refigured and marketed as Jewish world literature will be considered.

This program takes place in the 2nd floor Chapel.

About the Speaker

Jan Schwarz is an Associate Professor at the Center of Languages and Literatures, Lund University, Sweden. He is the author of Imagining Lives: Autobiographical Fiction of Yiddish Writers (2005) and Survivors and Exiles: Yiddish Culture after the Holocaust (2015). He is currently working on a project funded by the Swedish Research Council (2014-2016) entitled The Bilingual Works of Isaac Bashevis Singer: Novels, Translations, World Literature.