Miriam Borden

Miriam Borden is a Lecturer in Yiddish in the Department of German specializing in Yiddish literature and culture. Research interests include nineteenth- and twentieth-century Yiddish literature and publishing, modern Jewish history and culture, Yiddish in American popular culture, and affect theory. She also specializes in Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature and culture. Borden is currently completing a dissertation at the University of Toronto on the phenomenon of relating to Yiddish as the familiar, folksy, and feminine mame-loshn (mother tongue), exploring the history of that relationship through the sexual politics of language, the idea of the nation, and the construction of the modern Jewish self. Borden teaches courses on Yiddish language, the history of Yiddish culture, and nostalgia in Yiddish literature. She holds a B.A. and an M.A. in Yiddish from the University of Toronto.