Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society Organization Logo Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society

Faculty Fellow

Na'ama Rokem

Associate Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature & Comparative Literature University of Chicago

Biography

Photo by Erielle Bakkum

Na'ama Rokem works on Modern Hebrew and German-Jewish literature. Her first book, Prosaic Conditions: Heinrich Heine and Spaces of Zionist Literature (Northwestern University Press, 2013) argues that prose - as a figure of thought, a mode, and a medium - played an instrumental role in the literary foundations of the Zionist revolution. She is now writing a book about the encounter between Paul Celan and Yehuda Amichai, as well as articles on multilingualism and translation in the works of Hannah Arendt and Leah Goldberg, on the politics of translation in Israel. With Amir Eshel, she coedited a special issue of Prooftexts, on German-Hebrew relations.

Featured Project

Detail of a 19th century map of the Middle East

The Quest for Modern Language Between the Mediterranean and Black Sea, 1820–1948

2021 – 2024

Projects

Translation Networks and the Stakes of Comparison: Convergences and Crossings Between Arabic and Hebrew

Skyward-facing detail of a metal sculpture made of letters from various alphabets

Translation Networks and the Stakes of Comparison: Convergences and Crossings Between Arabic and Hebrew

This seed-stage project will lay the groundwork for a large-scale comparative study of the translation and reception of Arabic and Hebrew literature in the West. A key focus will be creating digital resources and mapping tools that visualize the networks through which texts are translated and...
This seed-stage project will enable the research collaborators to work together on a proposal for a multi-year grant devoted to a comparative study of the translation and reception of Arabic and Hebrew literature in the West. One of the project’s goals is to create digital resources and mapping ...

Project Team: