WOMEN WRITING IN YIDDISH: WOMEN’S JEWISH HISTORY, TRADITIONS AND CHANGES (ONLINE)
This course introduces participants to the vibrant, bold, and profoundly moving literary world of Yiddish women writers from the 19th century to the present. Through short stories, poetry, memoirs, and intellectual reflections, we explore how Jewish women across Europe, North America, and Israel used Yiddish to write about their lives—often at the intersection of tradition and transformation, silence and voice, trauma and creativity.
The course centres around two core collections: “Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers in Translation” and “The Yiddish Women Writers: An Anthology of Stories That Looks to the Past So We Might See the Future”. Both offer potent selections from across time, geography, and experience. These are complemented by readings from other classic anthologies of Yiddish short stories, offering a broader context to understand the unique voices of women writing in this language.
Among the featured writers are Esther Singer Kreitman, Rokhl Brokhes, Fradl Shtok, Miriam Raskin, Dora Shulner, Irena Klepfisz, Malka Lee, Celia Dropkin, Rokhl Korn, Blume Lempel, Chava Rosenfarb, and Kadia Molodowsky.
The course is given in collaboration with Jiddischsällskapet i Stockholm and Paideia – The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden.
Course structure
The course will combine lectures—providing general overviews, context, and thematic introductions—with interactive discussions focused on close reading and analysis of short stories.
Prior knowledge
The course is given in English.
Application is open to beginners as well as regular readers of Jewish literature with an interest in literature, gender studies, Jewish history, translation and cultural memory. No previous knowledge of Yiddish is necessary.
All readings will be offered in English translation, with selected texts also available in Swedish and original Yiddish for those interested in exploring the multilingual dimension.
To apply you need basic computer skills and knowledge of how to use the digital platform Zoom. The school offers Zoom manuals and a training opportunity before the start of the course.
Course literature
Course material in the form of a digital reader, containing 10 short stories, poems, and essays, along with selected critical overviews, is included in the cost for this course.
Costs for materials you buy on your own may be added in the form of optional reading recommended by the teacher.
About the teacher
Urszula (Ulla) Chowaniec is assistant professor at Lund University, researching the concept of the contemporary Jewish secular identity and the Jewish women’s writing. She holds a PhD in literature from the Jagiellonian University. She lives in Stockholm, where she also teaches Jewish Women’s Literature and Yiddish Literature at the Paideia Folkhögskola. She is the author of “Melancholic Migrating Bodies in Contemporary Women’s Writing” (2015) and “In Search of a Woman: Early Novels of Irena Krzywicka” (2007), and main editor and co-author of “Women’s Voices and Feminism in Polish Cultural Memory” (2012), “Mapping Experience on Polish and Russian Women’s Writing” (2010), “Masquerade and Femininity. Essays on Polish and Russian Women Writers” (2008).
Academic site: https://cudzoziemki.weebly.com
Photo: Image composition by Ulla Chowaniec & Sora (AI) , created using open-access sources.
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Course information
Times
Wednesdays 19:15-21:15 CET
Course start
Wednesday 10 September
11 sessions
Teacher
Urszula (Ulla) Chowaniec
Application deadline
Sunday 22 June