«Scorned My Nation»

The Author: Dror Abend-David graduated from New York University with a Ph.D. in comparative literature in 2001. He is currently Assistant Professor at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, and has published academic articles, translations, poetry, and short stories in various magazines and collections.

«Just as Biblical commentary interacts and intertwines with Biblical tales, so do translations and adaptations extend, complement, and critique Shakespeare’s plays, as well as shape what those texts mean in other cultures. Dror Abend-David has applied this midrashic and Derridean principle to show how German, Hebrew, and Yiddish versions of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ enlist Shakespeare’s play into such nation-building projects as German nationalism, Zionism, and Yiddish culture as the expression of a deterritorialized people. ‘Scorned My Nation’ is an important contribution to studies of translation and adaptation, to Shakespeare studies, and to the histories of the three literary and theatrical traditions it explores.» (Michael Shapiro, Professor of English and Director of the Sheldon and Anita Drobny Interdisciplinary Program for the Study of Jewish Culture and Society, University of Illinois)