Graduate Student, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Ruth R. Wisse
About
I am a PhD student in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, in the Yiddish language and literature program. My interdisciplinary work focuses on Yiddish theater, Jewish performance and theatrical modernism around the world.
My other research interests include:
• Jewish literature, culture, and music
• Dramatic literature and theater history
• Performance and Jewish identity
• Translation / translation theory
• Modernism in stage and film productions
• Eastern European literature, theater, history and culture
• Comparative Jewish literature
I received my B.A. from Hampshire College in 2007 in Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature, where I also worked as a cataloger, tour guide, and fellow at the National Yiddish Book Center.
Currently, I am a research and teaching fellow of the new Lily Center for Jewish Languages and Literatures.
In addition to my academic pursuits, I am also a director and translator for the theater. Last spring, I directed Di gantse velt iz a teater - an evening of six Yiddish theater scenes performed in the original Yiddish (with English supertitles) at Harvard. In 2006, my translation of Itzik Manger's 1938 musical Hotsmakh-shpil, produced under the title The Magic Mirror, premiered on the stage of the National Yiddish Book Center.
I am currently working on a bilingual production of Goldfaden's operetta Shulamis, which will be staged at Harvard's Agassiz Theater in December 2009. See www.shulamis.org for details.
Contact Information
6 Divinity Avenue
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
