Teaching from Right to Left

Publication Date: October 2004

Publisher: Association for Jewish Studies

Author(s): Anita Norich

Research Area: Culture and religion; Education

Keywords: Higher Education; Language; Publications; Jewish Text

Type: Brief

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

As part of a 4-part series on the challenges of teaching texts in translation, the author reflects on teaching Yiddish literature in translation. She states that the task of teaching in translation is complicated with respect to Yiddish because it has become a metonym for eastern European Jewry and the world destroyed within fading, but still-living memory. She argues that the pedagogic work of literary scholars is to offer a view of both the textual traditions and material conditions that produced a work, and to encourage a range of different perspectives.