Sponsor
Center for Jewish Studies
Co-Sponsor(s)
German Studies; Romance Studies
Book Talk: "Games of Inheritance: Kabbalah, Tradition and Authorship in Jorge Luis Borges"
Thursday, December 4,
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Speaker(s): Yitzhak Lewis
Yitzhak Lewis discusses his most recent book: "Games of Inheritance: Kabbalah, Tradition and Authorship in Jorge Luis Borges," Rutgers University Press, 2025.
Games of Inheritance explores the thought of Argentine author and public intellectual Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) on questions of authorship and literary tradition. The book focuses on Borges's engagement with Jewish literary and intellectual traditions, highlighting the role of this engagement in developing and expressing his views on these questions. The book argues that the primary relevance of Borges's persistent reference to "the Judaic" is not for understanding his attitude toward Jews and Judaism but for understanding his position in contemporary Argentinian debates about nationalism and literature, empire and postcolonialism, and populism and aesthetics. By broadening the frame of Borges and the Judaic, this book shifts the scholarly focus to the poetic utility of Borges's engagement with Jewish literary and intellectual traditions. This allows a better understanding of the nuance of his views on the issues that most animate his oeuvre: authorship and writing, literature and tradition.
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.
Games of Inheritance explores the thought of Argentine author and public intellectual Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) on questions of authorship and literary tradition. The book focuses on Borges's engagement with Jewish literary and intellectual traditions, highlighting the role of this engagement in developing and expressing his views on these questions. The book argues that the primary relevance of Borges's persistent reference to "the Judaic" is not for understanding his attitude toward Jews and Judaism but for understanding his position in contemporary Argentinian debates about nationalism and literature, empire and postcolonialism, and populism and aesthetics. By broadening the frame of Borges and the Judaic, this book shifts the scholarly focus to the poetic utility of Borges's engagement with Jewish literary and intellectual traditions. This allows a better understanding of the nuance of his views on the issues that most animate his oeuvre: authorship and writing, literature and tradition.
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.
