Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 08.124 February 1, 1999 1) International Conference on Isaac Bashevis Singer (Seth Wolitz) 1)---------------------------------------------------- From: seth l. wolitz Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 11:19:02 -0600 Subject: International Conference on Isaac Bashevis Singer AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER (OPEN TO THE PUBLIC) Title of conference: The real Bashevis and his creation: I.B.Singer Date: February 28, 1999 Time: 9:00 AM -- 6:OOPM Where: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin 9:30 AM --12:30PM at the Tom Lea Room (3rd floor) 2:00PM--6:00PM in the 4th floor auditorium Sponsors: The University of Texas Gale Chair of Jewish Studies Annual Distinguished Lecturer Series, The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The Department of Slavic Studies and The Center of Eastern European and Eurasian Studies with the support of the Hillel House Participants: internationally distinguished scholars of Yiddish literature and specialists of Isaac Bashevis Singer's works The international Conference on Isaac Bashevis Singer taking place at the Harry Ransom Center is gratis and open to the public. This conference brings together the world's leading scholars of Yiddish literature and the specialists of Isaac Bashevis Singer (1908-1991), the Nobel Prize Winner. The setting is most appropriate for the HRC is the major center of Bashevis Singer's manuscripts. The scholars will lecture in English on various aspects of his accomplishments. Bashevis Singer will be studied from literary, biographical, psychoanalytic, linguistic and cultural perspectives. One of the purposes of this congress is to emphasize that this master writer created in the Yiddish language and from the inheritance of the traditional Jewish Eastern European world. The meeting will reveal how and why Isaac Singer was the creator of his pen name in Yiddish, Isaac Bashevis, adding his mother's name, by which he was always known in Yiddish and how he created his English language persona, Isaac Bashevis Singer. His literary masterpieces which are so appreciated in English translation are in fact often quite different in emphasis and in endings from the Yiddish,. This meeting will clarify the reasons for his literary, cultural and ideological manoeuvres which make this great literary figure so fascinating both as a Yiddish and English writer and as a person. Scholars from as far away as Israel, South Africa and Poland, besides France, Great Britain and Canada are coming to Austin to participate in these meetings. It is one of the most historical gatherings of Yiddish specialists in the world. Certainly it is the first time that Austin and the University of Texas at Austin has ever presented such a gathering devoted to Yiddish literature and culture. Bashevis Singer visited Austin many years ago and the University has always been a center of Yiddish cultural studies and so it is appropriate that a major conference on this Nobel Prize winner takes place here in Texas. The public is welcome and invited to attend. Thanks, Seth Wolitz Tentative Schedule: SUNDAY, 28 February, 1999 in the Tom Lea Room of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center 9:00AM: Prof. Itsik Nakhmen Gottesman (Univ. of Texas), Folk and Folklore in I.B. Singer's "In My Father's House" [in Yiddish] 9:30AM: Prof. Astrid Starck-Adler (Universite de Haute Alsace), The Influence of the Mayse-Bukh on Bashevis Singer 10:00AM: Prof. Natan Cohen (Bar Ilan University), Varshe 1914-1918: Bashevis' First and Unknown Autobiographical Novel 10:30AM: Coffee Break 11:00AM: Prof. Abraham Noversztern (Hebrew University) [to be announced] 11:30AM: Prof. Mark L. Louden (Univ. of Texas), Sociolinguistic Views of I. B. Singer 12:00PM: Prof. David Neal Miller (Ohio State University), Translation, Ambiguation, and the Question of Audience 12:30PM--2:00PM Lunch Break in the 4th Floor Auditorium of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center 2:00PM: Prof. Janet Hadda (Univ. of California, Los Angeles), Bashevis at the Forverts 2:30PM: Prof. Irving Saposnik (University of Wisconsin, Madison), Moskat Revisited: or How Gimpel the Simple Became Isaac the Wise. 3:00PM: Mr. Brad Sabin Hill (Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies), Dem Tatns sforim-shrank (Bashevis' Ancestral Library) [in Yiddish] 3:30PM: Coffee Break 4:00PM: Prof. Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska (Maria Curie-Skladowska University, Lublin, Poland), The Role of the Polish Language and Literature in Bashevis' Fiction 4:30PM: Prof. Alan Astro (Trinity University), Choice and Compulsion in Der Bal-tsuve 5:00PM: Prof. Mark Southern (Univ. of Texas, Austin) "Now What kind of work does he do?": Singer as a post-Czernowicz representative of the Yiddish Golden Age 5:30PM: Prof. Jan Schwarz (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana), The Supernatural in two Bashevis Stories: "Oyfn oylem-hatoyhu(1928) and "Di kafeterye" (1968) 6:00PM--8:00PM Reception-Dinner [private] in the Tom Lea Room 8:00PM: Prof. Joseph Sherman (Univ. of Witwatersrand, Johannisburg, South Africa) I.B Singer and the Jewish Pope 8:30PM: Prof. Eugene Ornstein (McGill University) [to be announced] 9:00PM Prof. Hugh Denman (University of London) [to be announced] 9:30PM Prof. Seth Wolitz (Univ. of Texas) Concluding Remarks Saturday Evening Banquet [PRIVATE] 27 February, 1999 7:00PM Reception 7:30PM Dinner 9:00PM Introduction by Prof. Seth Wolitz, Words of Provost, Prof. Sheldon Eklund-Olson 9:15PM Prof. Robert King (University of Texas) Another Side of Isaac Bashevis 9:40PM Prof. Joseph Sherman (Univ. of Witwatersrand) [to be announced] Seth Wolitz ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 08.124 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu Mendele on the Web: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele http://metalab.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html