Skip to main content

Yitzhak Meir Lewis

Assistant Professor of Humanities at Duke Kunshan University
DKU Faculty

Overview


Yitzhak Lewis is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Duke Kunshan University. He holds a Ph.D. (2016) in Hebrew and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. He received his B.A. (2007) in Comparative Literature, Psychology, and Creative Writing, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Yitzhak’s current book project, titled Games of Inheritance: Kabbalah, Tradition, and Writing in Jorge Luis Borges, is a study of marginality and mysticism as literary tropes in the writing of Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. His previous book, titled A Permanent Beginning: R. Nachman of Braslav and Jewish Literary Modernity (SUNY Press, 2020), deals with the Russian Imperial context of early modern Hebrew and Yiddish letters. His teaching and research interests include comparative literature in Hebrew, Spanish, Yiddish, and English, literary theory, transnational writing, and world literature.

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Assistant Professor of Humanities at Duke Kunshan University · 2019 - Present DKU Faculty

Recent Publications


Fables agreed upon: A comparative study of new historicism and alternate history

Journal Article Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art · January 25, 2021 New Historicism and alternate history raise similar questions regarding history and ideology. New Historicism reads every text as an alternate history narrative, while the narrative mode in alternate history can inspire a nuanced understanding of the criti ... Cite

A Permanent Beginning R. Nachman of Braslav and Jewish Literary Modernity

Book · March 1, 2020 It is a permanent disruption: “Parabasis is not enough, for Schlegel. Irony is not just an interruption; it is (and this is the definition which he gave of irony), he says, the “permanent parabasis,” parabasis not just at one point but at all points. ... Cite

Yiddish and the Transnational in Latin America

Journal Article In Geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies · 2020 Cite
View All Publications

Education, Training & Certifications


Columbia University · 2016 Ph.D.