On Wednesday, April 17, the Institute hosted the Professor Dan Miron Lecture in Hebrew Literature with bestselling Israeli-American author Maya Arad (Stanford University) and Prof. Shachar Pinsker (University of Michigan), who participated in a discussion called “The Place of Hebrew.”
Pinsker and Arad discuss the possibility of writing Hebrew in America, expanding the setting and characters of Hebrew literature beyond Israel. Using the translation of Arad's collection of novellas, The Hebrew Teacher (Translated by Jessica Cohen), which came out last month (New Vessel Press) as an example, they raise the question of the place of Hebrew in today’s Israel, in America, and elsewhere.
Maya Arad is the author of eleven books of Hebrew fiction, as well as studies in literary criticism and linguistics. Born in Israel in 1971, she received a PhD in linguistics from University College London and for the past twenty years has lived in California where she is currently writer in residence at Stanford University’s Taube Center for Jewish Studies. Her most recent book, The Hebrew Teacher, will be released in English translation for the first time on March 19, 2024.
Shachar Pinsker is a Professor of Judaic Studies and Middle East Studies, and Associate Director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Jewish Research. His scholarly writings include two award-winning books: Literary Passports: The Making of Modernist Hebrew Fiction in Europe (2011), and A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture (2018). He is also the editor (with Sheila Jelen) of Hebrew, Gender, and Modernity (2007), Women’s Hebrew Poetry on American Shores (2016), and Where the Sky and the Sea Meet: Israeli Yiddish Stories (2021). He is currently writing a book on Yiddish in Israeli literature, and co-directing the NEH supported research project: The Feuilleton, the Public Sphere, and Modern Jewish Cultures.
Dr. Arad and Prof. Pinsker’s talk is available to view in full below.
This event was made possible by the generosity of the Knapp family.
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