With the rise of digital media, the ‘death of the book’ has been widely discussed. But the physical object itself persists. Here, through the lens of materiality and objects, Barbara E. Mann tells a history of modern Jewish literature, from novels and poetry to graphic novels and artists’ books, offering a new frame for understanding how literary genres emerge. In conversation with acclaimed poet  Aviva Dautch.

Please note booking and registration for this event closes 10 minutes prior to the advertised start time.

In Association with the Rabin Chair Forum of The George Washington University.

Barbara Mann is the Stephen J. Hoffman Professor in Modern Hebrew Language and Literature at Case Western Reserve University.  She is the author of A Place in History: Modernism, Tel Aviv and the Creation of Jewish Urban Space (Stanford, 2006) and Space and Place in Jewish Studies (Rutgers, 2012).

Poet and academic Aviva Dautch is the Executive Director of Jewish Renaissance magazine and the resident expert on BBC Radio 4’s On Form, a series exploring the recent resurgence in formal poetry. Her translation of The Eighth Crossing, a book-length poem by Suhrab Sirat about his refugee journey from Afghanistan to the UK, was published in 2021 by Exiled Writers Ink.