Glikl’s Melancholia: Gender, Affect, and the Afterlives of Early Modern Yiddish Literature
CEMS New Faculty Affiliate Lecture by Matthew Johnson (German, Nordic and Slavic+)
Van Hise 1312 - Madsen Room
This talk will offer a brief introduction to early modern or “old” Yiddish literature, with a focus on the work of Glikl bas Judah Leib, who, between 1691-1719, wrote a series of complex and enduring texts about the personal, social, and ethical problems that both animated and unsettled her life. The talk will center on a close and contextual reading of Glikl’s claim that her writings’ “sole purpose […] was to stave off melancholy thoughts in the evenings and long nights” and trace how later translators, scholars/editors, and critics have thought about and refigured how she wrote about and through her melancholic inwardness.
Matt Johnson is Assistant Professor in the Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+ at UW–Madison. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago and subsequently taught at Lund University and the Ohio State University. His research centers on the dynamic relationship between Yiddish- and German-language literature and culture from the early modern period to the twentieth century.
Co-sponsored by GNS+ and CJS