Dr. Pareles (they+) is a scholar of translation and medieval studies whose interests include diasporic poetics, Old and Middle English literature, Bible translation, and Jewish-Christian/Jewish-Muslim relations. They are a student of languages including Yiddish and Ladino.

Their first book, Nothing Pure: Jewish Law, Christian Supersession, and Bible Translation in Old English (University of Toronto Press, 2024), received the Margaret Wade Labarge Book Prize for best book from the Canadian Society of Medievalists/La société Canadienne des médiévistes and was a finalist for the American Academy of Religion Award for Best First Book in the History of Religions.

They are co-convener of the Jewish-Muslim Cultural Intimacies project.

Selected Publications
Nothing Pure: Jewish Law, Christian Supersession, and Bible Translation in Old English (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2024). Winner of the Margaret Wade Labarge Book Prize, Canadian Society of Medievalists/La société Canadienne des médiévistes

“The warning.” A new translation from Clarisse Nicoïdski, Lus ojus Las manus La boca (Judeo-Spanish to English). Trinity Journal of Literary Translation (JoLT) 13, September 2024.

“Already/Never: Jewish-Porcine Conversion in the Middle English Children of the Oven Miracle.” Philological Quarterly 98.3 (2019): 221-42.

“What the Raven Said to the Eagle: Animal Language and the Return of Loss in Beowulf.” In Dating Beowulf: Studies in Intimacy. Edited by Daniel C. Remein and Erica Weaver. Manchester University Press, 2019. 164-86.

“Jewish Heterosexuality, Queer Celibacy? Ælfric Translates the Old Testament Priesthood.” postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies 8 (2017): 292–306.

“Men as Meat: Exploiting Jewish Law in Ælfric’s Translation of Maccabees.” Exemplaria 27 (2015): 187-204.

“Giving Yiddish the Devil: How Missionary Translation Reckons with Demons in the Yiddish New Testament.” Literature and Theology 26 (2012): 144-59.