Ruth R. Wisse is the Mar­tin Peretz Pro­fes­sor of Yid­dish Lit­er­a­ture and pro­fes­sor of com­par­a­tive lit­er­a­ture at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty. She is the author of The Mod­ern Jew­ish Canon: A Jour­ney through Lan­guage and Cul­ture, which won a Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award. Her oth­er books include Jews and Pow­er (Schock­en) and The Schlemiel as Mod­ern Hero.