Title: Am I My Brother’s Reader? The State of Yiddish Literary Translation
Abstract: “In this presentation, I examine recent developments in the translation of Yiddish literature into English
in the United States and Canada. Providing an overview of the field, I show how translation from Yiddish has shifted from a practice largely rooted in nostalgia, Holocaust memory, and Cold War politics, to a broader phenomenon aimed at both a linguistically
assimilated in-group of readers as well as a more global audience. Paying special attention to fundamental translation studies issues regarding audience and readership in the specific context of contemporary Yiddish culture, the talk will also include reading
from select texts in both languages.”
Bio: Sebastian Schulman (he/him) is the director of special projects & partnerships at the Yiddish Book Center.
Previously, he served as the executive director of KlezKanada, a leading organization in Yiddish arts and culture. His translations and original work have appeared in more than a dozen literary journals, including Two
Lines, Words Without Borders, and ANMLY. Sebastian’s translation of Spomenka Stimec’s Esperanto novel Croatian War Nocturnal
was published by Phoneme Media/Deep Vellum in 2017. He lives in Montréal, Québec (Tiohtià:ke).
Please register here to attend this free virtual lecture via Zoom, which will be held online
on January 18th, 2024 at 12:30pm PST.
Event website:
https://cenes.ubc.ca/events/event/sawchen-lecture-sebastian-schulman-am-i-my-brothers-reader-the-state-of-yiddish-literary-translation/
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Dr. Katherine Bowers (she/they)
Associate Professor of Slavic Studies
Vice-President, North American Dostoevsky Society
Department of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies
The University of British Columbia | Vancouver Campus | Unceded Musqueam Territory
924 - 1873 East Mall | Vancouver BC | V6T 1Z1 Canada