Summer Literary Seminars in Vilnius: Jewish Lithuania

I am passing on this e-mail that I received today:

Dear Professor Shear --

Apologies for writing out of the blue. I was hoping you would consider spreading among your colleagues and your students the information about the new program offered by the Summer Literary Seminars (SLS) in Vilnius: Jewish Lithuania.

Summer Literary Seminars (SLS) is an independent literary and cultural program, one of the world's largest and most dynamic, held each year in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Nairobi, Kenya, among other locales. (Here is the URL: www.sumlitsem.org.)

We are proud and delighted to be able to announce that our newest program, to be held in the capital city of Lithuania, Vilnius (Vilna) this summer (from 19 July to 2 August 2009), will be featuring a unique self-contained option: the Jewish Lithuania Program (for details please see: http://sumlitsem.org/lithuania/jewishlithuania.html).

Although including many facets of the rich Litvak heritage, there will naturally be emphasis on Yiddish language, literature, and folklore, and the literature, culture and history of the Eastern-European Jewish diaspora. In addition to the seminars and lectures offered by the program's director, Professor Dovid Katz, of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Vilnius University -- there will be a rich and variegated program of guest presentations, assembled and moderated by Prof. Katz (details at: http://sumlitsem.org/lithuania/jlguests.html).

The program is conducted in English, but in the event of Yiddish speakers and writers enrolling, Prof. Katz will be adding workshops and seminars conducted entirely in Yiddish. In all, it will be a genuinely exciting, truly one-of-a-kind annual event.

The program is open open to all -- writers and non-writers alike.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch with me if you have any questions about this or any of our programs. SLS would be very glad to hear from you.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Sincerely,

--
Mikhail Iossel
Associate Professor of English
Coordinator of Creative Writing
Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West
Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8 Canada
(514) 848-2424x5210

Founder and Director
Summer Literary Seminars
www.sumlitsem.org