Topic:   "Ghetto, Shtetl, and Beyond: 800 Years of the History and
Sociology of Yiddish"
TR 4:00-5:15   BH 142
Above section carries Cultural Studies credit
Above section meets with GER Y350 & Y506

The origins of the Yiddish language and of Ashkenazic civilization can
be traced to the very end of the first millennium CE. The aim of the
course is to offer a detailed and focused historic overview and
discussion of some of the major issues in the history of Yiddish
language and literature with special attention to socio-cultural and
sociolinguistic aspects. This course will concentrate on the last 800
years of the history and sociology of Yiddish focusing on the
following topics: (1) theories on the origin and age of Yiddish; (2)
attitudes to Yiddish: from "Ghetto" to "Shtetl";
(3) periodization of Yiddish language and literature; (4) "fusion"
language, Jewish language, vernacular: review of definitions with a
focus on the structure of Yiddish; (5) Yiddish and Hebrew: interface
between orality, literacy and "diglossia"; (6) Old Yiddish literature:
genres, language, historical development; (7) history of Yiddish
studies; (8) patterns of modernization: Yiddish in the 19th century;
(9) the rise of yiddishism and modern Yiddish culture; (10) sociology
of modern Yiddish: attitudes, debates, and arguments;(11) from
dialectology to stylistics: modern Literary Standard Yiddish,
daytshmerish, linguistic purism.

Texts:
A Reader of selected articles and papers
Selection of some Old Yiddish and Modern Yiddish literary texts in
	English translation
Fishman, Joshua (ed.), Never Say Die
Goldsmith, Emanuel, Modern Yiddish Culture: The Story of the Yiddish
Harshav, Benjamin, The Meaning of Yiddish
Kerler, Dov-Ber, Politics of Yiddish
Zinberg, Israel, Old Yiddish Literature from Its Origins to the
Haskalah Period