Please note: Prof. Torres will be on leave until Fall 2021 at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies.
Research Interests: Yiddish Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, Anarchism and Labor History, Disability, Diaspora Studies, Religion, Indigenous Studies, Translation
I specialize in Jewish Studies, Gender Studies, and labor history, with particular attention to the subjects of statelessness, anti-statism, and borderlands literature.
My forthcoming book is titled Horizons Blossom, Borders Vanish: Anarchism and Yiddish Literature (Yale University Press). This project examines the literary production, language politics, and religious thought of Jewish anarchist movements from 1870 to the present in Moscow, Tel Aviv, London, Buenos Aires, New York City, and elsewhere. The book’s archive includes early Proletarian (svetshop) poetry, talmudic commentary, political theology, and Modernist literature.
My second project is a study of Polish writer, philosopher, and art critic Debora Vogel (also written Dvoyre Fogel, 1900-1942). Deeply engaged with the artistic avant-garde, her aesthetic theory and practice anticipated postwar experimental representations of domestic temporality and women’s labor. I have translated her poetry collection Manekinen (Mannequins, 1934) and organized a Vogel symposium at U-Chicago; currently, I am co-editing a special issue of In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies. I am also co-editor (with Kenyon Zimmer) of a forthcoming anthology, Histories of Jewish Anarchism.
My other ongoing projects include a comparative study of racialization, indigeneity, and colonial education in Puerto Rico and Native American residential schools in the United States.
I serve on the International Editorial Board for Manchester University Press' Contemporary Anarchist Studies Series. I have held fellowships at the National Yiddish Book Center, the Joseph A. Labadie Collection, and elsewhere. I have also worked as a muralist, community organizer, and set designer.
Selected Publications
Horizons Blossom, Borders Vanish: Anarchism and Yiddish Literature. Yale University Press (forthcoming)
Histories of Jewish Anarchism. (Anthology co-edited with Kenyon Zimmer, forthcoming)
In geveb Special Issue on Debora Vogel (Dvoyre Fogel), co-editor.
"Circular Landscapes: Montage and Myth in Dvoyre Fogel's Yiddish Poetry."
Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues. Number 35, Fall 5780/2019 pp. 40-73
"The Horizon Blossoms and the Borders Vanish: Peretz Markish's Poetry and Anarchist Diasporism." Jewish Quarterly Review, Volume 110, Number 3, Summer 2020, pp. 458-490
“'To Those Who Came Before, We Say Pa'lante': Women in the Puerto Rican Independence Movement.” With Emma Torres. Feminisms in Motion: A Decade of Intersectional Feminist Media (AK Press)
Courses Taught
- Poetry and the Human (Core Sequence)
- Gender and Embodiment in Yiddish Literature
- Stateless Imaginations: Anarchism and Literature
- Language is Migrant: Yiddish Poetics of the Border
- Queer Jewish Literature
Affiliated Departments:
Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
Jewish Studies
Center for Sexuality and Gender Studies