Associate Professor of Literary Studies, Schools of Public Engagement, The New School

Literature

On the elements of crisis: oxygen, hydrogen, chlorine

July 14, 2020 • by Val Vinokur

The tigers sing: We never ate your parents. So what if we ate your parents. They were no angels and neither are you....

Literature

On the rough, indifferent tongue of the truth

July 7, 2020 • by Val Vinokur

Come and see the tigers lick us with their rough / indifferent tongues as our wax darkens...

Literature

On crime and punishment and missing out on parties

June 30, 2020 • by Val Vinokur

The virus is born and already dead, a script / for another life’s dis-ease. ...

Literature

On Joe Exotic and Bill Gates

June 23, 2020 • by Val Vinokur

Tiger catches / Joe Exotic by the toe. He won’t run, / let him go. My mother said Bill Gates / is going to pick the very last one....

Literature

On fever dreams and wounds to lick

June 16, 2020 • by Val Vinokur

A wounded animal conceals itself to hide from death and to seek it....

Literature

On sleeping dangers, grocery runs, and hiding out in the wilderness

June 9, 2020 • by Val Vinokur

Last night I dreamed there was a tiger sleeping / in the bosom of the family, the same light canary / color as the dog. ...

Literature

On tigers, Richard Brautigan, and six feet of distance

June 2, 2020 • by Val Vinokur

In the Bronx the tigers have come down / with a dry cough and febrile dreams...

Education

What’s So “Jewish” About The New School?

Inventing a parable of pluralism

February 7, 2019 • by Val Vinokur

So what’s so Jewish about The New School? Well, it depends on what you mean by “Jewish.” The simplest -- and most awkwardly Nixonian -- way to answer the question is to count the Jews. When King David tried to do that in 2 Samuel 24, God smote the Israelites with three ...

Feature

Crossing Borders Is My Life

Doing and teaching literary translation in the age of customs and border protection

January 7, 2019 • by Val Vinokur

I grew up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, in a country afraid its citizens would leave and wary of foreigners somehow contaminating or stealing something from the homeland. As we were preparing to leave Moscow forever (we thought) in 1978, my grandmother's youngest brother, whom she had ...

Feature

Translation Can Be a Peculiar Drug

Isaac Babel’s ‘Guy de Maupassant’ retranslated

November 29, 2017 • by Val Vinokur

Babel writes: “A phrase is born into the world both good and bad at the same time. The secret lies in a barely discernible twist. The lever should rest in your hand, getting warm. You must turn it once, but not twice . . . I started talking of style, ...