A one-day conference on Jewspeak and Its Aftermath: Speech and Orality in Modern Jewish Discourse. Although it arrived in the world without the pedigree of a classical language, modern Yiddish literature boasted a formidable asset: the capacity to represent language as Jews actually spoke it. The energy and vitality of the vernacular, however, also posed challenges of representation to novelists, poets, and graphic novelists. This conference will explore the Yiddish matrix of orality and trace its influence on American Jewish literature and the challenge it posed to modern Hebrew literature.

Cosponsored with The Jewish Theological Seminary

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Goldsmith Moadon, Horace W. Goldsmith Residence Hall Broadway and 121st Street

9:30 Light breakfast

10:00-12:00: The Taming of the Shrew: Yiddish as the Locus of Jewish Speech
Miriam Udel (Emory) – Childspeak between the Vernacular and Folkloric            
Jordan Finkin (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) – Literary Yeshivish            Hanna Pollin-Galay (Tel Aviv University/Columbia) – Survivorspeak            
Respondent – David G. Roskies (JTS)

12:00-1:30 Jewspeak in Performance (over sandwiches) 
Agi Legutko (Columbia) - The Grossbard Project

1:30-3:30: Jewspeak Unbound
Hana Wirth-Nesher (Tel Aviv University) – Speaking Jewish American           
Jeremy Dauber (Columbia) – The Graphic Novel Speaks Jewish
Alan Mintz (JTS) – Making Hebrew Speak: Reflections on a Monological Literature
Respondent: Marc Caplan (Center for Jewish History) 

3:30-4:30 Wine & Cheese Reception

Please RSVP to Jebland@jtsa.edu by October 3, 2014.