IIJS is pleased to welcome Shai Ginsburg for the fall 2026 Professor Dan Miron Lecture in Hebrew Literature: “From Timber to Text: Hebrew Culture and Class in Imperial Russia.”
Thursday, November 19, at 2:00 p.m. | 617 Kent Hall.
In his paper, Prof. Ginsburg traces the surprising entanglement of commerce, capital, and Hebrew culture in the Jewish communities of the mid-nineteenth-century Russian Empire. Focusing on the town of Kapyl (Kopyl) and drawing on autobiographical and fictionalized autobiographical writings by Abraham Jacob Paperna and Sholem Yankev Abramovich (Mendele Moykher-Sforim), it argues that the transformation of Hebrew education—and, with it, the “emergence” (though this term itself is debatable) of modern Hebrew fiction—cannot be understood simply as the triumph of Maskilic ideology. Rather, new forms of Hebrew learning emerged alongside the expansion of capitalist networks, the circulation of goods and people across the Russian Empire and beyond, and the rise of a Jewish middle class eager to redefine its social identity.
Using Kapyl as a case study, the talk will reflect on the relationship between different historiographical frameworks: between so-called Jewish and general history; between social, economic, and literary history; between the history of Hebrew literature and Jewish literatures in other languages; and between the history of Hebrew literature and the history of the Hebrew language itself.
Shai Ginsburg teaches at Duke University. His work focuses on modern Jewish cultures and politics, with particular attention to Hebrew and Jewish intellectual histories. He has published on Israeli literature and cinema, Zionism, the history of the Hebrew language, and critical theory. In recent years, he has also developed a strong interest in games—both video games and board games—and has devoted much of his teaching to the study of games and play. His current project traces the emergence of Hebrew speech across the Jewish world in the years leading up to the First World War.
*Guests must register by Tuesday, November 17, to be approved for campus access; unregistered guests will not be permitted on campus. Each guest must register individually using a unique email address.
Supported by the generosity of the Knapp family.
While all IIJS events are free and open to the public, we do encourage a suggested donation of $10.