I am an MPhil student in Political Theory at Brasenose College and the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford.
Currently, I am thinking and writing about utopia and the history of Yiddish political thought. In my thesis, I develop and use what I call a ‘function-based’ approach to analysing utopian texts to provide the first extended study of Kalman Zingman’s Yiddish-language utopian novel, In Der Tsukunft-Shtot Edenia (1918) and to elaborate central ideas in Yiddish political thought. The aims of my thesis are to:
- begin to recover the history of Yiddish political thought;
- provide a necessary complement to existing accounts of Marxism, Zionism, and German-Jewish political thought that are incomplete and impoverished without an account of how they were influenced by Yiddish political thought;
- provide new substantive insights on nationhood and nationalism, non-territorial sovereignty and the nation-state, language politics and post-vernacularity;
- offer intellectual resources for contemporary theorising and action; and
- expand our sense of what ‘counts’ as political thought by undertaking a serious study of utopian fiction.
Research Interests
- Utopia and utopianism
- Yiddish political thought and its history
- Nineteenth and twentieth century Jewish political thought and related traditions (e.g., Russian Marxism)
- Jewish diasporism and anti-zionism
Relevant Posts
Convener, Oxford Utopia Reading Group — Weekly interdisciplinary reading group for postgraduate students and faculty interested in utopian literature and political thought.
Coordinating Committee, Farbindungen Yiddish Studies Conference — Work with an international team to solicit abstracts, select papers, plan panels, and organize workshops for an annual Yiddish studies conference for graduate students and early career scholars.
