Women Writing Jewish Modernity, 1919–1939

What role did women play in the making of Jewish literary modernity? We know too little about the women writers, artists, and intellectuals who participated in transforming Jewish culture in the twentieth century. This talk will offer a counter history of modern Jewish literature from the perspective of women. The talk will focus on two women writers, Dvora Baron (Hebrew) and Fradl Shtok (Yiddish), and look at how they turned to art as a form of political and social labor.

Allison Schachter is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, English, and East European Studies at Vanderbilt. A scholar and translator who works on modern Jewish literature and culture, she is the author of Diasporic Modernisms: Hebrew and Yiddish Literatures in the Twentieth Century (Oxford UP, 2012) and Women Writing Jewish Modernity, 1919-1939 (Northwestern UP, 2022). Together with Jordan Finkin she translated From the Jewish Provinces: Selected Stories of Fradl Shtok (Northwestern UP, 2022).

Thursday, March 16, 2023 • 314 Royce • 4 PM
Allison Schacter (Vanderbilt)
Women Writing Jewish Modernity, 1919–1939

Arnold Band Distinguished Lecture in Jewish Studies