Heidi Kaufman, The Book Archive: Jewish Literary History in 19th-century London

Isadore and Rosalie Sharp Lecture

Heidi Kaufman (University of Oregon) 

The Book Archive: Jewish Literary History in 19th-century London

This talk focuses on a chapter from my recent book, Strangers in the Archive: Literary Evidence and London’s East End (UVA Press, 2022), that describes my discovery of a unique copy of the first Anglo-Jewish novel, Maria Polack’s Fiction Without Romance (1830). Faced with archival silences in my search for evidence of Polack’s writing life and path to publication, I turned to the creation of digital archives. This talk recounts how my digital transformations of cryptic archival evidence revealed significant features of Polack’s extraordinary novel and the Anglo-Jewish social network that supported its publication and reception.

Heidi Kaufman is Professor Emerita of English and Judaic Studies at the University of Oregon. She specializes in nineteenth-century British literature, Jewish literature, and digital humanities. She has recently begun a position as a Regional Museum Educator at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education. Her recent book, Strangers in the Archive: Literary Evidence and London’s East End (UVA 2022) won the 2023 AJS Jordan Schnitzer Book Award for Literature. Heidi is currently working on a new book project on Holocaust material and craft culture.

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This event will be delivered in-person in JHB100 (170 St. George Street) on Monday, April 7, 2025 at 4 PM.