May 11, 5 PM (Hybrid Event): Naomi Seidman, "In the Freud Laboratory: Psychoanalysis, Yiddish, and the Institute for Jewish Science"

Abstract: This lecture will explore the connections between Vienna and Vilna, the homeland of psychoanalysis where its Jewish character was anxiously debated, and the Eastern European offshoot where "Jewish Science" was openly embraced. In particular, we will explore the relationship between Freud and Max Weinreich, his "authorized" Yiddish translator and the researcher who attempted to use psychoanalytic tools to understand what Jewishness might mean in the modern moment.

Naomi Seidman is the Chancellor Jackman Professor of the Arts in the Department for the Study of Religion and the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016, and a National Jewish Book Award in 2019. Her writings on translation include Faithful Renderings: Jewish—Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation (University of Chicago Press, 2006). She is presently completing a study of Freud in Hebrew and Yiddish translation. 

This talk is co-sponsored by the UC Davis Jewish Studies Program and the Department of Comparative Literature.

Zoom registration here.