ABOUT THIS EPISODE
"If you have not been to Łódź you cannot imagine its texture, the strange uniqueness of its streetscape...."
In this episode Jonathan Slater speaks with Norman Ravvin, writer, literary scholar, Concordia University professor, and contributor to the fall 2024 volume of Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes. Norm discusses his essay, "City, Writer, Conference: A Chava Rosenfarb Conference in Łódź, Poland, October 2023," a moving on-the-ground report from Łódź, where he attended a centennial conference devoted to the Canadian Yiddish writer Chava Rosenfarb, who was born in the city.
OUR GUEST
Norman Ravvin is a writer, teacher, and critic. His most recent book is Who Gets In: An Immigration Story (University of Regina Press). He has published novels and short stories, including The Girl Who Stole Everything. His essays on Jewish writers can be found in A House of Words: Jewish Writing, Identity, and Memory. He is co-editor of The Canadian Jewish Studies Reader and Failure’s Opposite: Listening to A.M. Klein. A native of Calgary, he lived in Vancouver, Toronto, and Fredericton before settling in Montreal, where he teaches in the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University.
RECOMMENDED READING
"City, Writer, Conference: A Chava Rosenfarb Conference in Łódź, Poland," Norman Ravvin, Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes
EPISODE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Host: Jonathan Slater
Producer/Editor: Michelle Chang
Music: J.K. Bradley
Executive Producers: Joshua Tapper and David S. Koffman
Tête-à-tête: Conversations in Canadian Jewish Studies is made possible by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Aid to Scholarly Journals program and the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies and J. Richard Shiff Chair for the Study of Canadian Jewry, both at York University.