NEW COURSE
COMPLIT 224X – Modernist Jewish Poetry
Semester: Spring
Offered: 2026
Instructor: Kathryn Hellerstein
Meeting Time: T 3:00-5:00pm
The premise of this course, “Modernist Jewish Poetry,” is to present Jewish modernism as an international phenomenon of the early 20th century. The course will attempt to define “Jewish modernism” through the prism of poetry, which inevitably, given the historical events in Europe and America during this time, grapples with aesthetic, religious, and national ideologies and methods. The syllabus will focus mainly on poetry written in Yiddish and English, and will also include French, German, Hebrew, and Russian verse. All poetry, critical, and theoretical materials will be taught in English translation, although I request that students who know the languages will work on the original texts and will bring to the table a comparative perspective. Because we will be discussing translated poems, a secondary focus of the course will, in fact, be on literary translation’s process and products.
For more details please visit the Harvard Course Catalog.