Book Talk with Zohar Weiman-Kelman

Bringing together Jewish women's poetry in English, Yiddish, and Hebrew from the late 19th century through the 1970s, this talk will explore how Jewish women writers turned to poetry to write new histories. Developing 'queer expectancy' as a conceptual tool for understanding how literary texts can both invoke and resist what came before. Weiman-Kelman demonstrates how poets such as Emma Lazarus, Leah GOldberg, ANna Margolin, and Adrienne Rich push back against heteronormative imperatives of biological reproduction and inheritance, opting instead for connections that twist traditional models of gender and history. Looking backwards in queer ways, thus enables new histories to emerge, and intervenes in a troubled present, giving hope for unexpected futures.