Vera Schwarcz is Emerita Professor of History and East Asian Studies and Senior Research Fellow at Truman Institute, Hebrew University. She held the Freeman Chair at Wesleyan University. Her BA was from Vassar College with a MA from Yale, a MAA from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Born in Romania, Schwarcz has taught Chinese history at Stanford University, Wesleyan University, as well as at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Beijing University and Centre Chine in Paris. She servied as Director of the Freeman Center for East Asian Studies and Chair of the East Asian Studies Program at Wesleyan. Her works were awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fullbright Fellowship, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and a Lady Davis Fellowship and was nominated for the National Jewish Book Award. She also received poetry grants from the Wesleyan Writers Conference as well as from Great River Arts in Patzcuaro, Mexico.
Vera Schwarcz is the author of many prize-winning books and celebrated articles. Her literary contributions include:
- Long Road Home: A China Journal (Yale University Press, 1984) -The author describes her sixteen-month visit to Communist China, shares firsthand accounts of the Cultural Revolution, and assess the complex structures of modern Chinese society.
- The Chinese Enlightenment (Berkeley, 1984) – It is widely accepted, both inside China and in the West, that contemporary Chinese history begins with the May Fourth Movement. Vera Schwarcz’s imaginative new study provides China scholars and historians with an analysis of what makes that event a turning point in the intellectual, spiritual, cultural and political life of twentieth-century China.
- Time for Telling Truth Is Running Out: Conversations with Zhang Shenfu (Yale, 1986) – Zhang Shenfu, a founder of the Chinese Communist party, participated in all the major political events in China for four decades following the Revolution of 1919. Yet Zhang had become a forgotten figure in China and the West―a victim of Mao’s determined efforts to place himself at the center of China’s revolution―until Vera Schwarcz began to meet with him in his home on Wang Fu Cang Lane in Beijing. Now Schwarcz brings Zhang to life through her poignant account of five years of conversations with him, a narrative that is interwoven with translations of his writings and testimony of his friends.
- Bridge Across Broken Time: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory (Yale University Press, 1999) – Explores the meaning of cultural memory in the vastly different Chinese and Jewish traditions. Vera Schwarcz finds a bridge between the two civilizations-a shared commitment to the transmission of remembrance and to witnessing to the significance of the past-and brings to life the struggles of Chinese and Jewish survivors who managed to preserve the continuity of their long traditions.
- Place and Memory in Singing Crane Garden (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008) – Vera Schwarcz gives voice to this richly layered corner of China’s cultural landscape. Drawing upon a range of sources from poetry to painting, Schwarcz retells the garden’s complex history in her own poetic and personal voice. In her exploration of cultural survival, trauma, memory, and place, she reveals how the garden becomes a vehicle for reflection about history and language.
- Ancestral Intelligence (Antrim House, 2013) – A forceful and fascinating work depicting the cultural landscape of contemporary China.
- Colors of Veracity: A Quest for Truth in China and Beyond (University of Hawaii Press, 2014) – Vera Schwarcz condenses four decades of teaching and scholarship about China to raise fundamental questions about the nature of truth and history. In clear and vivid prose, she addresses contemporary moral dilemmas with a highly personal sense of ethics and aesthetics.
- The Road of Coming Home: Me And China [Chinese Edition by Xia Hongwei and Kong Hanbing] (Peking University Press, 2018)
- In the Crook of the Rock: Jewish Refuge in a World Gone Mad ― The Chaya Leah Walkin Story (Academic Studies Press, 2018) – This book illustrates the inner resources of the refugee community that made possible survival with dignity. Based on a wide variety of sources and languages, this book is crafted around the voice of a child who was five years old when she was forced to flee her home in Poland and start the terrifying journey to Vilna, Kobe, and Shanghai.
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Books of Poetry
- While the Mongering Wolf Slept: Talmud Poems Volume 4 (2023)– This is the fourth of several volumes of poems based on the daily Talmud study called Daf Yomi. Written in a contemporary lexicon, these verses aim to bring alive a connection to past and future alike. The poems also paint a universal picture of humanity’s search for sacredness in the concrete details of material life.
- Each Page Must Have Its Song: Talmud Poems Volume 3 (2023) – This is the third of several volumes of poems based on the daily Talmud study called Daf Yomi. Written in a contemporary lexicon, these verses aim to bring alive a connection to past and future alike. The poems also paint a universal picture of humanity’s search for sacredness in the concrete details of material life.
- Murmurings from Sea and Sky: Talmud Poems, Volume 2 (2022) – This is the second of several volumes of poems based on the daily Talmud study called Daf Yomi. Written in a contemporary lexicon, these verses aim to bring alive a connection to past and future alike. The poems also paint a universal picture of humanity’s search for sacredness in the concrete details of material life.
- Smelling Sweetness Is No Theft: Talmud Poems, Volume 1 (2022) – This is the first of several volumes of poems based on the daily Talmud study called Daf Yomi. Written in a contemporary lexicon, these verses aim to bring alive a connection to past and future alike. The poems also paint a universal picture of humanity’s search for sacredness in the concrete details of material life.
- Chisel of Remembrance (Antrim House, 2009) – Devoted to the premise that in the cultural and communal traditions of all peoples, be they Chinese, Jewish or Tibetan, there is what Yeats called a ceremony of innocence offering salvation from the mere anarchy loosed when the past is forgotten. In poems concerning the classical arts of creation, the value of remembrance, the havoc wrought by war and revolution, and the peace gained by ancient practices of meditation and devotion to the present, the author urges us to hear the voice within the silence.
- In The Garden of Memory– a collaboration with the Prague-born Israeli artist Chava Pressburger
- Breaking the Dawn: Poetry as Love in a Time of Hardship (with Ruby Steinberg-Wolfe)
- Brief Rest in the Garden of Flourishing Grace (Red Heifer Press, 2009) – Poems of Remembrance and Loss by the Manchu Prince Yihuan
- Truth is Woven (Premier Poets Chapbook Series, 2005)
- A Scoop of Light (March Street Press, 2000)
- Fresh Words for a Jaded World – and selected poems (Blue Feather Press, 2000)
- The Last Foreign Language: A Memoir in Verse – A poetic meditation on language intertwined with personal history, memory and tradition. The poet searches for a place to call home “in between words of many tongues.”
Articles
- “Kolot: Writing About Terror on a Day of Terror,” Jewish Ledger (November 23, 2022)
- “Toward The Anniversary Of The Tiananmen Square Massacre – Unlike Mao And Deng, President Xi Will Not Allow Another Beijing Spring,” Memri #265 (March 16, 2021)
- “Presence Of The Past: ‘National Humiliation’ As A Central Theme In China’s Worldview And Policies,” Jewish Ledger (January 12, 2021)
- “Kolot: Fish for free? Parshat Baha’alotcha,” Jewish Ledger (June 9, 2020)
- “Book Review: Inheritance of Loss: China, Japan, and the Political Economy of Redemption after Empire,” The China Journal Volume 83 (2020)
- “Crying Out for Peace and Healing in China,” Washington Jewish Week (February 19, 2020)
- “Inheritance of Loss,” The China Journal #83 (January 2020)
- “Book Review of Popular Memories of the Mao Era: From Critical Debate to Reassessing History,” The PRC History Review Book Review Series No. 16 (December 2019)
- “Kolot: If No One Died in Tiananmen Square, Any Lie Will Do,” Jewish Ledger (June 11, 2019)
- “Kolot: Seeing Sounds & Synesthesia of the Soul,” Jewish Ledger (January 29, 2019)
- “Book Review: The Intellectual in Modern Chinese History,” Harvard-Yenching Institute HJAS 78.2 (2018)
- “Kolot: Who Had Money in Bergen Belsen,” Jewish Ledger (July 18, 2018)
- “Kolot: Why Aliyah Now?,” Jewish Ledger (June 27, 2018)
- “Kolot: Hashem Echad,” Jewish Ledger (August 2, 2017)
- “Kolot: To Mourn a Chinese Dissident in Yerushalaim,” Jewish Ledger (July 26, 2017)
- “The Lonely Few: Human Rights and the Dreams of the Tiananmen Generation,” Human Rights Quarterly (May 12, 2016)
- “Rich Wine and Powerful History: A Shabbat Visit to Elon Moreh,” Jewish Action (March 23, 2016)
- “To Catch the Echo: Rethinking Acts of Witnessing to the Shoah,” History and Theory (Wiley, October 2015)
- “To Honor the Language of Truth: Reflections on Friedrich Nietzsche, Hayim Nachman Bialik, Chen Yinke and Zhang Longxi,” Cross-Cultural Studies: China and the World (Brill, 2015)
- “The Art of Listening: Jewish and Chinese Views of Aging,” B’or Ha’Torah 23 (2014-2015)
- “Remembering the Rebbe Who Changed My Life,” The Jewish Ledger (June 25, 2014)
- “Review of After the Event: The Transmission of Grievous Loss in Germany, China, and Taiwan,” The American Historical Review (2012)
- “One Gaunt Brush,” Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal, Volume 15, Number 2 (Indiana University Press, Autumn 2010)
- “Re-conceiving and Un-learning May Fourth: Personal Reflections on the Ninetieth Anniversary in Beijing,” China Heritage Quarterly No. 18 (June 2009)
- China, Israel, and Judaism (Sh’ma Journal: Independent Thinking on Contemporary Judaism Book 44)
- “Winter’s voice: Bei Dao,” World Literature Today Volume: 83 Issue: 3 (University of Oklahoma, May 1, 2009)
- “Truthfulness at Dawn, Truthfulness at Night: Reflections on a Common Striving in Chinese and Jewish Traditions,” Journal of World History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008)
- “The Art of Poetry, Part II,” Poetrysky.com (July 2007)
- “The Art of Poetry,” Poetrysky.com (January 2007)
- “Truth and History: The Chinese Mirror,” History and Theory, Volume 46; Number 2 (2007) pp. 281–291
- “Travels in China,” Binah (March 19, 2007) pp. 18–25
- “Dreaming the Song of Songs,” Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal (Indiana University Press, 2006)
- “Jiu ji mang mang” (Blurred and boundless traces from the past – historical trauma in the work of the Manchu Prince Yihuan) in Bijiao wenxhe yu shijie wenxhe (Comparative Literature and World Literature) Beijing University Press, (2005) pp. 154–167
- “Wu si liang dai zhi shi Jen zi” (Two generations of May Fourth intellectuals) in Xi Jilin, editor 20 Shi Dai Zhong quo zhi shi Jen zi liang (Essays on 20th Century Intellectual History) (Shang hai, 2005)
- “Zamen you zhiyin” (A Wordless Connection) in Chen Lai, ed. Bu Xi Ji: Huiyi Zhang Dainian Xiansheng (Unbroken Threads: Essays in Memory of Professor Zhang Dainian). Beijing, 2005. pp. 340 – 346.
- “Historical Memory and Personal Identity,” B’or Ha’Torah No 15. (2005) pp. 56 – 60
- “Circling the Void: Memory in the Life and Poetry of the Manchu Prince Yihuan,” History & Memory, Indiana University Press, Volume 16, Number 2 (Fall/Winter 2004)
- “Review of Intellectuals at a Crossroads: The Changing Politics of China’s Knowledge Workers.” Cambridge University Press (September 2004)
- “The Appropriation of Cultural Capital: China’s May Fourth Project,” The Journal of Asian Studies (2003)
- “Review of Port of Last Resort: The Diaspora Communities of Shanghai,” China Review International (2002)
- “The Garden in its Time: Visions of Refuge in One Corner of Beijing,” Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes (Informa UK, 2002)
- “Through and Against the Tide of History: Zhu Guanqian and the Legacy of May Fourth,” China Studies, No. 5 (1999)
- “Garden and Museum: Shadows of Memory at Peking University,” East Asian History 17/18 (1999)
- “A Cigarette for Sukarno … Brought Disgrace upon the Chinese People”—A Review Essay on the Cultural Revolution,” China Review International, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998)
- “Book Review: The Idea of Wilderness,” Yale University Press (1998)
- “A Brimming Darkness: The Voice of Memory/The Silence of Pain in China after the Cultural Revolution,” Critical Asian Studies (1998)
- “Book Review: Self and Deception: a Cross-Cultural Philosophical Inquiry,” The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 56 , Issue 4 , (November 1997) , pp. 1043 – 1044
- “The Burden of Memory: The Cultural Revolution and the Holocaust,” China Information (Summer 1996)
- “The Pane of Sorrow: Public Uses of Personal Grief in Modem China,” Daedalus (Winter, 1996)
- “Di er ci shi Jie da zhan: zai bo wu guan de guang zhao zhi wai (World War II: Beyond the Museum Lights) in Dong Fang (The Orient)” Vol. 5 (1995)
- “Chinese History, Jewish Memory”: Shapes of Memory, ed. Geoffrey Hartman (London: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1994)
- “No Solace from Lethe,” The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today, Stanford University Press (1994)
- “Obituary: Lawrence Olson,” The Journal of Asian Studies (1992)
- “Book Review: Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China: The View from Shanghai,” The China Quarterly (December 1, 1992)
- “Between Russell and Confucius: China’s Russell Expert, Zhang Shenfu,” Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell (1991)
- “A Secondary Bibliography of Zhang Shenfu on Russell,” Russel: the Journal of The Bertrand Russell Studies (Winter 1991)
- “No Solace from Lethe: History, Memory, and Cultural Identity in Twentieth-Century China,” Daedalus, (January 1991)
- “Seventy Years Already,” Earth Against Heaven: A Tiananmen Square Anthology (Five Islands Press, 1990)
- “Amnesie historique dans la Chine du XX e siecle,” Genre Humain, special issue, “Politiques de L’Oubli,” No. 18 (Paris, 1988)
- “Out of Historical Amnesia,” Modern China (SAGE Publications, 1987)
- “Review of Wang Kuo-wei: An Intellectual Biography,” The Journal of Asian Studies (Volume 46 , Issue 2 , May 1987), pp. 386 – 387
- “Remapping May Fourth: Between Nationalism and Enlightenment,” Republican China (Informa UK, 1987)
- “Review Essay: The Intellectual as Survivor-Witness,” Critical Asian Studies (1986)
- “Poet in the People’s Republic,” Vassar Quarterly, Volume LXXXII, Number 3 (June 1, 1986)
- “Behind a Partially-Open Door: Chinese Intellectuals and the Post-Mao Reform Process,” Pacific Affairs (January 24, 1986)
- “International Relations and Politics,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (July 1, 1984)
- “A Curse on the Great Wall: The Problem of Enlightenment in Modern China, Theory and Society 13, no. 3 (May 1, 1984)
- “Six Generations of Modern Chinese Intellectuals,” Chinese Studies in History (Informa UK, 1983)
- “Reflections on the Intellectual Climate of China,” The Limits of Reform in China (1983)
- “Willing in the Face of Necessity: Lu Xun, Brecht, and Sartre,” Modern China (1981)
- “How Lu Xun became a Marxist: Conversations with Yuan Liangjun,” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (September 1981)
- “Review of Mozartian Historian,” Wiley for Wesleyan University (1978)
- “How Literary Rebels Became Cultural Revolutionaries,” The Journal of Asian Studies (1978)
- “Ibsen’s Nora: The Promise and the Trap,” Critical Asian Studies (1975)
Vera Schwarcz has been featured in many prominent articles, interviews and press releases. These include
- Ami Magazine
- Jewish Ledger – Conversation with Vera Schwarcz (May 2, 2018)
- Academic Studies Press Interview with Vera Schwarcz (March 29, 2018)
- Jewish Ledger – “Thinking Jewish/Teaching China”, The Unique World of Prof. Vera Schwarcz (May 6, 2015)
- Inside the Classroom: Vera Schwarcz – China Hands Magazine (April 8, 2014)
- Review essay: Intellectuals in Modern and Contemporary China – Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 20:1, 62-67 (1989)
Public Appearance: Videos
- Why China Studies: A Second Generation Story (May 2, 2022)
- Expanding Historical Empathy: The Holocaust and Atrocities of the Mao Era (April 22, 2021)
- Interview with Prof Vera Schwarcz
- Memories of the Holocaust – Poet and Author Vera Schwarcz reads her poetry at the China Institute. These poems are inspired by her memories of her family’s experience of the Holocaust. Her poems are poignant and beautiful.
- Place & Memory in China– Professor, poet and author, Vera Schwarcz shares her reminiscences of China with her poetry at the China Institute.
- Vera Schwarcz Annual Lecture Series – A short film introducing The Vera Schwarcz Annual Lecture by Chabad at Wesleyan. A program to further her legacy which is dedicated to Judaism and critical thinking – a topic near and dear to Professor Schwarcz.
- Impressions of China – Professor Vera Schwarcz – Poet and Author reads her poems in remembrance of her years in China
- “A Jewish Wanderer Listening for the Unsayable in China” at Wesleyan Thinks Big (2013)
- Vera Schwarcz at Claremont McKenna College (November 5, 2013)
- Ancestral Intelligence – Renditions & Poems (August 27, 2013)