The International Academic Conference

THE CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN JEWISH CULTURE at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Lodz and the MAREK EDELMAN DIALOGUE CENTER IN LODZ are organizing the International Academic Conference "CHAVA ROSENFARB AND JEWISH WRITERS OF THE 20th CENTURY".
Date of the conference: October 18-20, 2023
Place: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center in Lodz and Faculty of Philology, University of Lodz

 
The centenary of the birth of Chava Rosenfarb (1923-2011), a native of Lodz, but who created after the war, mainly in Canada, and who is considered the most outstanding contemporary Yiddish writer, is an opportunity to subject to scholarly reflection not only her novels, poems and essays, but also to look at the work of other 20th-century Jewish women writers who articulated their Jewish, female and gender experience in similar or precisely different ways. We want to broaden the field of our attention, even though Rosenfarb's texts themselves are already very interesting material for the study of autobiographical themes in literature, fictional representations of the Holocaust, records of the ghetto experience, attempts at literary reconstruction of the lost worlds of the shtetl and Jewish Lodz, or the "gender traces" that mark all these worlds. We want to make the subject of reflection the works of Jewish women authors, writing in the 20th century not only in Yiddish - such as Chava Rosenfarb - or Polish and Hebrew, but also in the languages of the countries in which these authors lived and worked, or with which they felt connected.

OCTOBER 18 (WEDNESDAY) 

PLACE: Marek Edelman Dialogue Center, Wojska Polskiego 83 street

All speeches and lectures on October 18 with simultaneous translation (Polish/English, English/Polish). The headphones will be available right before the official inauguration of the conference.

2:00 p.m. – Registration / Rejestracja uczestników
2:00-3:00 p.m. – Welcome coffee / little lunch / Powitalna kawa / mały lunch (for conference guests / dla gości konferencji)
2:30-3:00 p.m. – The certification of new trees of remembrance in the Survivors’ Park / Wręczanie certyfikatów Drzew Pamięci w Parku Ocalałych
3:00-3:30 p.m. – Official inauguration / Oficjalna inauguracja konferencji
3:30-4:00 p.m. – Goldie Morgentaler (Canada, University of Lethbridge): Chava Rosenfarb, Poland and Translation (keynote lecture / wykład inauguracyjny)
4:00-4:30 p.m. – Adele Reinhartz (Canada, University of Ottawa): Chanele’s Diary or Henia’s Memoir?: A Mystery Document from (or about?) the Lodz Ghetto
4:30-5:00 p.m. – Mordecai Walfish (USA, New York): I Was Never a Sunday Scribbler: the Place of Writing in the Life of Chava Rosenfarb and her Sister Henia Reinhartz
5:00-5:30 p.m. – Break / Przerwa
5:30-6:30 p.m. – Conversation with Chava Rosenfarb’s Family and discussion / Rozmowa z rodziną Chavy Rosenfarb i dyskusja (host / prowadzenie: Joanna Podolska)
6:30-7:00 p.m. – Break / Przerwa
7:00-8:00 p.m. – Concert Tree of Life inspired by poetry of Chava Rosenfarb / Koncert Drzewo życia inspirowany poezją Chavy Rosenfarb (Composer / Kompozytor: Artur Zagajewski)

OCTOBER 19 (THURSDAY) 

PLACE / MIEJSCE: Faculty of Philology, 171/173 Pomorska street

9:30-12:00 – PLENARY SESSION / PANEL PLENARNY
9:30 – Welcome / Powitanie
9:30-9:50 – Kathryn Hellerstein (USA, University of Pennsylvania): Chava Rosenfarb’s Poetry
9:50-10:10 – Jeffrey Wallen (USA, Hampshire College): Fathoming the Depths in The Tree of Life: The Loneliness of the Female Yiddish Writer
10:10-10:30 – Golda Van Der Meer (Catalonia/Spain, Universitat de Barcelona): Chava Rosenfarb and the task of the Yiddish translator
10:30-11:00 – Urszula Chowaniec (Poland/Sweden, Krakowska Akademia im. Andrzeja Frycza Modrzewskiego/Paideia Folh.gskola Stockholm), Jan Schwartz (Sweden, Lunds Universitet): To Be a Yiddish Woman’s Writer, a Woman Writer? Correspondence Between Chava Rosenfarb and Zenia Larsson
11:00-11:30 – Discussion / Dyskusja
11:30-11:45 – Letter for the Living / List do potomnych – Written by Chava Rosenfarb. Performed by Jane Arnfield (UK, Northumbria University). Performative Reading
11:45-12:00 – Coffee break / Przerwa kawowa

12:00 – 2:00 p.m. – DIVISION INTO TWO PARALLEL SESSIONS

PANEL A (English)
12:00-12:20 – Carola Hilmes (Germany, Goethe Universit.t Frankfurt a.M.): Contemporary Witnesses Write about the Lodz/Litzmannstadt Ghetto: A Comparison of Different Literary Forms
12:20-12:40 – Hannah Pollin-Galay (Israel, Tel Aviv University): Journeys with Language in Rosenfarb’s The Tree of Life
12:40-1:00 p.m. – Norman Ravvin (Canada, Concordia University): Boomtown Poets: Framing Chava Rosenfarb and Esther Shumiatcher
1:00-1:20 p.m. – Regan Treewater-Lipes (Canada, MacEwan University): Cynthia Ozick and the Literary Negotiation of Post Shoah Jewish Consciousness
1.20-2:00 p.m. – Discussion / Dyskusja
2:00-3:00 p.m. – Lunch break / Przerwa na obiad

PANEL B (English)
3:00-3:20 p.m. – Isa Milman (Canada, Victoria, British Columbia): The Lost Poems of Basia Kramer. A Polish-Jewish Woman Writer Eradicated from History
3:20-3:40 p.m. – Anna Frątczak (Poland, Krakowska Akademia im. Andrzeja Frycza Modrzewskiego): Topography of memory: Łódź in Chava Rosenfarb’s novels
3:40-4:00 p.m. – Sonia Gollance (United Kingdom, University College London): Tea Arciszewska’s Miryeml (1958/59) and Yiddish Plays by Women
4:00-4:20 p.m. – Lynn Shapiro (USA, Chicago): Judith Berg and The Intersection of Dance and Text in Yiddish Literature
4:20-4:40 p.m. – Laura Estrin (Argentina, Universidad de Buenos Aires): Theory and Jewishness. Poetics of the Continuum
4:40-5:20 p.m. – Discussion / Dyskusja

PANEL C (English)
3:00-3:20 p.m. – Ariane Santerre (Canada, University of Montreal): “For Every Life Saved Another Must Be Sacrificed”: Chava Rosenfarb’s Literary Depictions of the Grey Zone in The Tree of Life and Edgia’s Revenge ONLINE
3:20-3:40 p.m. – Linda/Leye Lipsky (Canada, York University, Toronto): Nusakh Beyle: The Poetic Mode of Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman ONLINE
3:40-4:00 p.m. – Lesley Turner (Canada, University of Toronto): The Rhetoric of Edgia’s Revenge ONLINE
4:00-4:20 p.m. – Jesse Toufexis (Canada, University of Ottawa): “Smoke Rising Day and Night”: Exploring Chava Rosenfarb’s Implicit Mysticism in Edgia’s Revenge ONLINE
4:20-4:40 p.m. – Christa Whitney (USA, Yiddish Book Center): Women Yiddish Writers’ Living Legacy ONLINE
4:40-5:20 p.m. – Discussion / Dyskusja

PANEL D (English)
3:00-3:20 p.m. – Isa Milman (Canada, Victoria, British Columbia): The Lost Poems of Basia Kramer. A Polish-Jewish Woman Writer Eradicated from History
3:20-3:40 p.m. – Anna Frątczak (Poland, Krakowska Akademia im. Andrzeja Frycza Modrzewskiego): Topography of memory: Łódź in Chava Rosenfarb’s novels
3:40-4:00 p.m. – Sonia Gollance (United Kingdom, University College London): Tea Arciszewska’s Miryeml (1958/59) and Yiddish Plays by Women
4:00-4:20 p.m. – Lynn Shapiro (USA, Chicago): Judith Berg and The Intersection of Dance and Text in Yiddish Literature
4:20-4:40 p.m. – Laura Estrin (Argentina, Universidad de Buenos Aires): Theory and Jewishness. Poetics of the Continuum
4:40-5:20 p.m. – Discussion / Dyskusja
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5:30 p.m. (plenary) – Documentary/Dokument “Yiddish Montreal, Chava Rosenfarb & Goldie Morgentaler” and meeting with Erica Pomerance (Canada)
ENG: Yiddish Montreal, Chava Rosenfarb & Goldie Morgentaler. Archives from a documentary film project by Erica Pomerance. Based on the treatment: Irene Ellenberger, Philippe Amiguet. Producer in development: Monique Simard, Productions Virage
POL: Jidysz Montreal, Chava Rosenfrab i Goldie Morgentaler. Materiał filmowy projektu Eriki Pomerance. Realizacja: Irene Ellenberger, Philippe Amiguet Produkcja: Monique Simard, Productions Virage

OCTOBER 20 (FRIDAY)

TWO PARALLEL SESSIONS

PANEL A (English)
9:30-9:50 – Sylwia Chutnik (Poland, Uniwersytet SWPS/Uniwersytet Pedagogiczny w Krakowie): “We want to believe that there is meaning”. Women’s Voices in the Ringelblum’s Archive
9:50-10:10 – Allison Schachter (USA, Vanderbilt University): Rokhl Brokhes’s Radical Aesthetics
10:10-10:30 – Ruth Panofsky (Canada, Toronto Metropolitan University): Chava Rosenfarb’s Montreal Connections: Writers Miriam Waddington and Adele Wiseman
10:30-10:50 – Shana Rosenblatt Mauer (Israel, Herzog College/Schechter Institute): Chava Rosenfarb and Ida Fink’s Short Stories – Circumventing Readers’ Post-Modern Skepticism ONLINE
10:50-11:30 – Discussion / Dyskusja
11:30-12:00 – Coffee break / Przerwa kawowa

PANEL B (Polish)
9:30-9:50 – Agnieszka Żółkiewska (Poland, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma w Warszawie): „Ja i getto to jedno”. Henryka Łazowertówna wobec doświadczenia Zagłady
9:50-10:10 – Joanna Degler (Poland, Uniwersytet Wrocławski): Między oswajaniem a wyobcowaniem – czyli wyzwania przekładu na język polski powieści Chavy Rosenfarb
10:10-10:30 – Anna Jamrozek-Sowa (Poland, Uniwersytet Rzeszowski): „Ostatni sens mojego życia”. Zapis zmagań o pamięć w pamiętnikach polsko-izraelskiej pisarki Haliny Birenbaum
10:30-10:50 – Anna Wal (Poland, Uniwersytet Rzeszowski): „Romans, książka o holocauście, książka mojego pokolenia”. O powieści Tort weselny Lei Shinar
10:50-11:30 – Dyskusja
11:30-12:00 – Coffee break / Przerwa kawowa

PANEL C (ENGLISH)
12:00-12:20 – Sandra Chiritescu (USA, Columbia University): Immigrant Mothers of the Second Wave: Jewish-American Feminist Autofiction
12:20-12:40 – Tha.s Miller (USA, University of California, Santa Cruz): Feminist Reclamation as Resistance: The Rise of Online Women in Yiddish Literature Courses in the US and Canada
12:40-1:00 p.m. – Jakub Zygmunt (Poland, Uniwersytet Warszawski): Social Themes in Celia Dropkin’s Prose Works
1:00-1:20 p.m. – Julie Sharff (Canada, University of Toronto): Dos meydl/ di kallah/ dos vayb: The Semiotics of Yiddish Girlhood in the Fiction of Esther Singer Kreitman ONLINE
1:20-2:00 p.m. – Discussion / Dyskusja

PANEL D (Polish)
12:00-12:20 – Arsen Hordziy (Italy, Universit. degli Studi di Genova): Teksty tradycji żydowskiej w twórczości Irit Amiel
12:20-12:40 – Krystyna Gielarek-Gorczyca (Poland, Uniwersytet Rzeszowski): Między peronem Dworca Gdańskiego a Jerozolimskim morzem, czyli o twórczości Violi Wein
12:40-13:00 – Beata Tarnowska (Poland, Uniwersytet Warmińsko-Mazurski w Olsztynie): Renata Jabłońska, pisarka z Tel Avivu (i z Łodzi)
13:00-13:10 – Danuta Szajnert, Małgorzata Domagalska (Poland, Uniwersytet Ł.dzki): Między sztetlem a Łodzią – o dwóch powieściach Chavy Rosenfarb
13:10-13:20 – Joanna Podolska (Poland, Uniwersytet Łódzki): Wędrówki przez wewnętrzne kontynenty. Chavy Rosenfarb eseje z Łodzią w tle
13:20-13:30 – Dyskusja
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2:00 p.m. – End of the International Conference Chava Rosenfarb and the Jewish Female Writers of XXth Century / Zakończenie Międzynarodowej Konferencji Chava Rosenfarb i żydowskie pisarki XX wieku
 
 

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