NEJS 221a
Reading Yiddish Literary and Historical Texts
Course description
This course is intended to meet the needs of graduate students in NEJS, Israel Studies, History and other fields who have completed Yiddish 30, 40 or the equivalent, and need to expand and deepen their knowledge of Yiddish with the goal of using the language for research. (Advanced undergraduate students who meet the above criteria may enroll with the instructor’s permission.)
The course introduces students to the major genres of Yiddish literature and criticism, and historical, religious and ethnographic writing. It offers an accelerated, contextualized study of advanced Yiddish grammar, and training in decoding the often heavily Germanized vocabulary and spelling of the Yiddish press. Students planning to conduct archival research will receive guided practice in methods of reading handwritten documents.
Many students of Yiddish at the high intermediate and advanced levels have not had the opportunity to read unabridged texts and have scant acquaintance with the major contributors to modern Yiddish print culture. The course is designed to introduce students to a variety of genres and writers. Each text will be presented within a framework of the study of advanced grammar, with a focus on a few of its predominant grammatical features.
In addition to the benefits of being exposed to a variety of different genres, voices and literary registers, students gain from more extensivereading of the works of select authors. A few 10-15 page examples are included in the syllabus for this purpose. As students become closely acquainted with works by authors such as I.J. Singer, whose style, while lexically rich, is syntactically straightforward, they develop confidence and speed.
Topics for study:
Grammatical topics: conditional mood; passive voice; dative experiencer construction; complex relative clauses; indirect discourse; systems of verb prefixation; aspectual function in prefixed verbs; perfective vs. imperfective; verb forms denoting intensivity, extensivity, instantaneousness, casualness; adverbs of all types
Lexical topics: verbal prefixes; adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions showing purpose, cause, result, opposition, consecutive action; the Slavic component in Yiddish; the Hebrew-Aramaic component in Yiddish; recognizing and understanding words borrowed from modern German; noun suffixes
Reading skills:scanning a text prior to reading; identifying the thesis; skimming for particular facts; posing questions while reading; summarizing the text in writing; judicious use of the dictionary; exercises for improving reading speed
Reading list:
With Great Pleasure: A Century of Yiddish Writing, Heather Valencia, ed. Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies, 2003. This 200-page collection of short fiction and memoir contains works by 20 different writers, an extensive glossary and cd recordings of all the works.
YidishafYidish (Yiddish in Yiddish) by David Goldberg. Yale University Press, 1996. This is a collection of short texts presented in grammatical and lexical context and accompanied by extensive interactive exercises. It is intended for advanced language students.
Yidish II (Yiddish II) by MordkheSchaechter. Second edition, 1993. This is an advanced grammar textbook. Grammatical concepts and exercises relevant to readings are used.
Fun a veltvosiznishtomer (Of a World that is No More), by I.J. Singer, 1946. Selected chapters from this memoir by one of the leading Yiddish fiction writers of the 20th century.
Leksikon fun der nayeryidisherliteratur (Lexicon of the New Yiddish Literature). This is a biographical dictionary in 8 volumes. Selected biographies are read to expose students to academic writing and to provide material for skimming and scanning practice.
Algemeyneyidisheentsiklopedye (General Jewish Encyclopedia). This 4-volume encyclopedia includes extensive material on world Jewish history and culture. Excerpts from articles relevant to students' fields of study are read to expose them to academic writing and to provide material for skimming and scanning practice.
Each unit of study will be based on a reading from one of the sources listed above. Prior to beginning a reading, grammatical topics relevant to it will be introduced. Students will be asked to employ reading skills relevant to the text under study. After completing the reading and written exercises based on it,students will be asked to summarize ideas and/or retell a narrative orally.Each unit may take two to four class periods to complete. This fourteen-week course will comprise ten units like the one described above.
Evaluation:
Each completed unit of work will be evaluated based on the student's progress in using critical reading strategies, acquiring new grammatical skills and lexical material, and responding to the reading material in writing and orally. Students will receive written feedback from the instructor on each unit of work. The course grade will be cumulative, based on each unit of work.
Success in this 4 credit hour course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of 9 hours of study time per week in preparation for class (readings, written assignments, grammar exercises, research exercises, etc.).
Students with disabilities:
If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately.