Margot B. Valles

My research focuses on the intersection of language, translation, culture, and religion. 

I am currently working on an article that grew out of my involvement with the Inside/Outside Yiddish conference that took place at Rice University and was organized by Melissa Weininger and Diane Wolfthal. I was not able to attend, due to the birth of my daughter that weekend.  However, the topic was so exciting that I have been semi-diligently preparing an article version of it.  It looks at the multiple connotations of the word yiddishkayt (often translated as Jewishness or Jewish practice, but literally meaning "Yiddishness") and how those connotations affect scholarship on Early Yiddish literature. I hope to post about the completion of this project soon!

For general comments on my pedagogy and on-going or older projects/classes, see the Pedagogy page, here.

Gamifying Thrones: Transforming a Humanities Course into an Immersive Game Experience

I have been selected as a fellow for the 2017-2018 Lilly Teaching Fellows Program at MSU. For my SOTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) Project, I will be turning an existing IAH (Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities) class about King Arthur (see student work from past semesters here) into a game-like immersive online experience for undergraduates across disciplines.  Here is the description of my project and here you can find general information about this year's Lilly Teaching Fellows Program. Stephen Thomas of Craniumation will serve as my mentor.

As the year long program wraps up, you can see a version of my poster presentation by going here.

I review translations for InGeveb (when I can) and do personal translation work for friends, colleagues and myself. I'm pivoting from materials for individual use to public facing translations.  Can't wait to dig into some of the 19th century Yiddish works beyond the klassikers.

I'm also fascinated by the Yiddishe Velt, which, in the first half of the 20th century, was the only daily Yiddish newspaper between New York and Chicago.  The Jewish World was edited by Samuel Rocker, who unlike the editors of the Yiddish daily Forvertz, was a frum fellow, even after living in the US for a while. He is best known for his work on Der Sanzer Tsadek, available for free from the Yiddish Book Center. Samuel (Yehoshua) Rocker is the great-grandfather of my colleague at MSU's College of Communication Arts and Sciences, Kenneth Levine.

We plan to produce translations and analyses of the editorials in some kind of long term project--the details are still being hammered out, but I will update this when I know.