The Bilingual Works of Isaac Bashevis Singer: Novels, Translations, World Literature

Project: Research

Project Details

Popular science description

The project combines three research areas - the novel, translation studies, and world literature - in order to delineate the transformation of Singer's works from their Yiddish source culture via American translations to worldwide circulation. The project is the first critical study of Singer's work in both Yiddish and English that examines its circulation, translation and reception.

The project combines three research areas - the novel, translation studies, and world literature - in order to delineate the transformation of Singer?s works from their Yiddish source culture via American translations to worldwide circulation. The project is the first critical study of Singer's work in both Yiddish and English that examines its circulation, translation and reception. It will be based on archival research in the Singer collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin. This archive contains empirical material that has never before been examined. Additionally, I plan to assemble and publish an anthology that will reflect the full scope, content, and generic variety of the material collected in the Singer collection and the Yiddish press. Firstly, the project will collect and map Singer's journalism and serialized novels published in the Yiddish press, which to date have been examined by scholars only sporadically. This body of work will be used to analyze broader issues related to the origins and development of the Yiddish novel, and its relationship to the Yiddish press. Secondly, the project will address Singer's translation practice in regard to the increasing importance of his bilingualism as both a Yiddish and an English writer from the 1950s. Thirdly, I will examine Singer's storytelling. More than any other aspect of his work, his storytelling has achieved the status of world literature.
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date2014/01/012016/12/31