May 3, 2004 -- Dr. Ruth Roskies Wisse, Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard University, will receive an honorary doctoral degree from Yeshiva University at its 73rd Annual Commencement on May 20. The exercises will take place at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, where YU President Richard M. Joel will deliver the commencement address and confer more than 2,000 undergraduate and graduate degrees. President Joel will also bestow honorary degrees on Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, and Dr. Maurice Wohlgelernter, professor emeritus of English, Baruch College, City University of New York. Dr. Wisse received a BA and PhD from McGill University and an MA from Columbia University. She directed Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies from 1993 to 1996, and has taught at McGill and Tel Aviv University. Dr. Wisse has held visiting appointments at The Hebrew University; New York University; Stanford University; and the Max Weinreich Center of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Dr. Wisse has written and edited numerous books, essays, and anthologies of Yiddish prose and poetry, including her book The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Literature and Culture (Free Press, 2000), for which she received the National Jewish Book Award for Scholarship.