Anna Elena Torres

Anna Elena Torres is an Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Chicago. She holds affiliations with the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity, the Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies, and the Slavic Department. Her research focuses on Yiddish literature, anarchism, diaspora studies, and translation. She earned a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley (2016), an MTS from Harvard Divinity School (2010), and a B.A. from Swarthmore College (2007).

Her monograph Horizons Blossom, Borders Vanish (2024) explores how Yiddish literature engaged with anarchist thought and diasporic migration. Her current project A Bear Flew By examines animality and multispecies kinship in Yiddish arts. She organizes conferences like Yiddish Ecologies and has held fellowships at the Frankel Center and National Yiddish Book Center.

Her research spans Yiddish poetry, gender studies, and antifascist literature. Recent articles include studies of Dvoyre Fogel’s poetry and Peretz Markish’s Soviet-era works.

• Awards: Frankel Center Fellowship, National Yiddish Book Center Fellowship
• Courses: ‘Gender and Translation,’ ‘Queer Jewish Literature,’ ‘Stateless Imaginations’

Her work bridges Jewish Studies, Indigenous Studies, and animal ethics, emphasizing marginalized voices in transnational contexts.