Academic Writing Samples
Take a look at some of some of my favorite academic writing!
Talking to the Wandering Jew:
How Nazis Used Jews' Relationship to Language to Fuel Antisemitism
This research paper was a final for a course I took here at U of M called Antisemitism and Philosemitism: Jews in Myth and Thought (Judaic 388). This paper originally started as my final for another class, called Language and Discrimination (Ling 370). For that final, I wanted to write about one particular article, written by a member of the Nazi party, about how Yiddish "proves" how deceptive, business-oriented, and [insert antisemitic stereotype here] Jews are. I found that I was so engrossed in this topic that I couldn't possibly limit my exploration of it to this 3-page-max paper, so I ended up writing about it (and related topics) more extensively for Judaic 388 instead. This is my favorite writing project I've undertaken at college, and it also served as a jumping-off point for all of my projects in Writing 220.
Pargeting Over Trauma:
Virgina Woolf's Portrayal of Post-WWI London Across One Day in Mrs. Dalloway
Two summers ago, I traveled to Cambridge University for a four-week academic program. One of the seven courses in which I was enrolled there was called "Virginia Woolf's Women," and it explored Woolf's communication of various themes through her female characters in Mrs. Dalloway and The Years. I did not particularly enjoy reading Mrs. Dalloway (no shade to Woolf, just not my cup of tea) but writing this paper, which I elected to do at the end of the course, taught me a new appreciation of the novel and of Woolf's authorial genius. I'm very proud of the final essay.
A City of Doubles:
The Urban Environment As Represented by London in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula
I wrote this paper as the final project for another one of the courses I took at Cambridge, in the same program as the course on Mrs. Dalloway. Unlike with Mrs. Dalloway, I sincerely enjoyed reading the two books that comprise the subject of this essay! Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula both fascinated me from the beginning. I read them separately before I decided to take this class, and I was thrilled to receive a framework and environment in which to combine the two into one literary analysis.
החיבור האחרון:
חרדים ושירות צבאי
כתבתי את החיבור הזה בקורס העברית הראשון שעשיתי מאז שהגעתי לאוניברסיטת מישיגן. בהתחלה ולמשך חלק יחסית גדול של הסמסטר, לא הרגשתי שהעברית שלי הייתה מתקדמת כמו איך שכולם ציפו. כשסיימתי את החיבור הזה, שהיה את פרויקט הסיום שלנו, לפעם הראשונה באוניברסיטה הרגשתי גאה במה שיצרתי בשפה השנייה שלי.