Position:
Lector in Yiddish, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies
Faculty / College Address:
Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies
Email:
BeruriahWiegand@aol.com
Research Interests:
Yiddish literature, particularly the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Arn Tseytlin and A.N. Stencl. My special research interest is to look at Jewish mystical motifs in the works of these writers and to see how they combine their modern Yiddish prose (in Bashevis's case) or poetry (in Tseytlin's and Stencl's case) with motifs from Biblical, Talmudic, Kabbalistic and Hasidic sources
Current Projects:
- A review article on recent critical approaches to Isaac Bashevis Singer's works for Modern Language Review
- A conference paper on Kabbalistic and Hasidic motifs in Yankev Fridman's poetry
- The translation of some of A.N. Stencl's Whitechapel poetry for a new 'Five Leaves' publication of selected poems from Stencl's Whitechapel years.
Courses Taught:
- A weekly seminar on Isaac Bashevis Singer's autobiographical works at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at UCL in the Spring term of 2002
- A course on the history of the Yiddish language, Yiddish literature and culture at the Community Learning and Skills Service, London Borough of Waltham Forest, during the academic year of 2003-2004
- Yiddish language classes at various levels (beginners, lower intermediate, higher intermediate and advanced) for the Spiro Ark and the Jewish Music Institute, SOAS, London, since October 2003 until now.
Recent Publications:
- A.N. Stencl, All My Young Years : Yiddish Poetry from Weimar Germany, tr. Haike Beruriah Wiegand & Stephen Watts, Nottingham : Five Leaves, 2007.
Further Info:
In addition to teaching Yiddish language classes at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (on three levels), I will continue to teach two Yiddish classes for the Spiro Ark in London, as well as leading the London Yiddish Svive (an informal Yiddish group, which brings together older and younger Yiddish speakers and students and includes conversation, literature and Yiddish songs). I also write poetry in Yiddish and have published some of my poems in the Yiddish Forverts and Yugntruf magazine in New York, Der yidisher Tam-tam and Yidishe heftn in Paris, as well as on the internet : www.beruriahwiegand.blogspot.com.
