BENEDICT ALEXANDER FELDMAN

Email: Address: 42a Margalit Street, Haifa, Israel, 3446420

Current Position:Alon Fellow & Lecturer, Dept. of English, University of Haifa, Israel

Previous Positions:Assistant Professor of English (Modern British and American Drama)

MacEwan University, Edmonton, AB, Canada (July 2011—April 2015)

Lecturer, Merton College, Oxford (Sep.—Dec. 2010)

Postdoctoral Fellow, U. Texas at Austin (Aug. 2009—Aug. 2010)

Education

  • Merton College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, OX1 4JD

September 2005 – August 2009 D. Phil in English Literature

Historiographic Metatheatre: Dramas of the Past on the Late Twentieth-Century Stage

  • St John’s College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, OX1 3JP

September 2004 – June 2005: Master of Studies in English Literature: 1900 to the present

– Distinction

September 2001 – June 2004: BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature

– 1st Class(MA, May 2009)

Prizes/Scholarships/ Fellowships/ Awards

  • October 2015—September 2018 – Alon Fellowship, at the University of Haifa.
  • June-July 2014 – Recipient of a one-month Research Fellowship in the Humanities at the Harry Ransom Centre, University of Texas at Austin.
  • October 2009 – Junior Fellowship in British Studies (University of Texas at Austin). An honorary position with a stipend for research.
  • May 2008 – Simms Fund Bursary (Merton College, Oxford). Funds towards the completion of doctoral research.
  • September 2005 – Domus Graduate Scholarship (Merton College, Oxford). The scholarship included the provision of a full maintenance grant and the payment of college and university fees for the three years’ duration of the D.Phil course.
  • June 2004 – St John’s College Prize, awarded for a first-class degree.
  • June 2002 – Casberd Scholarship, awarded for a distinction in 1st year exams (Mods.)

Research and Publication

  • ‘Currents in the Cross-Legal: Re-contextualising Rattigan’s The Winslow Boy’,New Theatre Quarterly, 31: 2 (May 2015)
  • Review of Michael Y. Bennett’s Narrating the Past through Theatre: Four Crucial Texts (Palgrave, 2012) in GraleyHerren ed., Text & Presentation: Journal of the Comparative Drama Conference (March, 2015)
  • ‘“It Could Only Happen in England”: Law and the State of the Nation in the Plays of Terence Rattigan,’Lawand Literature(Fall, 2014)
  • Fellows Find: ‘Scholar explores eleventh-hour additions to George Bernard Shaw’s corrected proof of play Saint Joan’, Cultural Compass: Blog of the Harry Ransom Center

(http://blog.hrc.utexas.edu/2014/08/13/fellows-find-saint-joan/)

  • Dramas of the Past on the Twentieth-Century Stage: In History’s Wings(New York: Routledge, 2012)
  • ‘All Wilde on the Western Front: Alan Bennett, Tom Stoppard and the Theatre of War,’ Modern Drama 54.4 (Winter 2011)
  • ‘Historiographic Metatheatre: the formulation of a genre’ in Ruben Valdes Miyares and Carla Rodriguez Gonzalezeds., Culture and Power: The Plots of History in Performance (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009)

Invited Talks/ Presentations/ Responses:

  • With Noam Flinker, ‘“Consent is law enough to set you free”: Legal Discourse and the Influence of Milton in Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem’, 9th May 2016, Annual Colloquium, Department of English Language & Literature, University of Haifa, Israel
  • Respondent to AnatRosenburg’s‘Liberalizing Contracts: Nineteenth Century Promises through Literature, Law and History’, 15th April, Law & Humanities Workshop, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, Israel
  • ‘“Only the one who did”: Hannah Arendt, Adolf Eichmann and the Tricycle’s Tribunal Plays’, Law & Theatre: Forms of Testimony, Ceremony and Representation, 9th-11th June 2015 – Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
  • ‘The Perpetrators’ Theatre: Forensic Sobriety on the Verbatim Stage, Or De-traumatizing the Tricycle’, 12th November 2014 – University of Haifa, Israel.
  • ‘Adversarial History/Inquisitorial Drama: Developments in the 20th-Century Trial Play’, 6th June 2012 –King’s College, London.
  • ‘Adversarial History, Inquisitorial Drama: Trials on the Twentieth-Century Stage’, 24th January 2011 –MacEwan University, Edmonton, Alberta
  • ‘Trousers, Trauma and the Trenches: Stoppard’s Travesties and the Theatre of War’, 9th February 2009 – University of Texas at Austin.

Conference Presentations:

  • ‘“Here in death’s court, judged by death’s slaves”: The Anti-Fascist Verse Plays of Stephen Spender and Bertolt Brecht’, 31st March-1st April 2016, Comparative Drama Conference, Baltimore, MA.
  • with Noam Flinker, ‘Legality & Milton in George Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem’,9th March 2016, One-day Workshop on Mediaeval and Early Modern English Drama, Department of English and American Studies, Tel Aviv Univeristy.
  • (up)Staging the Law: a Special Session organized by the Law and Humanities Forum and the Drama and Performance Forum at the MLA Annual Convention, Austin, TX, 9th-12th January, 2016. Convenor.
  • ‘Conducting In-verse-tigations: Documentary Poetics in Legal-Historical Plays’, 30th October—November 1st, 2015, Literature, Labour and the Law, 4th Law & Literature Conference, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, New York.
  • ‘Exotic Martyrdom & Tropic Temptation: Screening the Hispanic in the films of Tennessee Williams’, 26th-28th March 2015, Comparative Drama Conference, Baltimore, MD.
  • ‘The Perpetrators’ Theatre: Forensic Sobriety and Subordinate Villainy on the Verbatim Stage’, 6th-7th March 2015, Eighteenth Annual Meeting of Association for the Study of Law, Culture & the Humanities, Georgetown University Law Center.
  • ‘Procedural Ethics, Verbatim Theatre: Representing Evil on the Documentary Stage’, 13th—14th July 2014 – Evil Incarnate: Manifestations of Villains & Villainy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH.
  • ‘Historiographic Metatheatre: Recycling Myths on the Margins’, 14th-16th July 2010 – Recycling Myths, Inventing Nations, Gregynog Hall, the University of Wales Conference Centre, Powys, Wales.
  • ‘“Having a modernist cake and eating it in postmodern crumbs”: The structure of Tom Stoppard’s Travesties and the role of Henry Carr’, 19th November 2007–CETL Developing Learning and Teaching Lectures, Oxford
  • ‘Historiographic Metatheatre: the formulation of a genre’, 26th-28th September 2007 – The 12th International Culture and Power Conference: the Plots of History, University of Oviedo, Spain
  • ‘Historiographic Metatheatre: the formulation of a genre’, 8th June 2007– English Graduate Conference, University of Oxford
  • ‘Shakespearian Retellings under Communism: Gunter Grass’s The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising and Tom Stoppard’s Cahoot’s Macbeth’, 19th-20th May 2007 – Retelling Tales: Postgraduate Conference on Rewriting and Retelling, University of Stirling, Scotland.

Teaching Experience:

University of Haifa

  • 109.2525 – Survey IV: Introduction to Twentieth-Century Literature
  • 109.2609 – Saints, Sinners & Southerners: Staging the Psyche in the Works of Tennessee Williams
  • 109.3356 – Writing the Century’s End: Oscar Wilde & the Spirit of his Age

MacEwan University

  • ENGL 103 – Introduction to English Literature
  • ENGL 284 – Introduction to Western Drama
  • ENGL 343 – Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama
  • ENGL 366 – British Literature: 1950 to the Present
  • ENGL 363 – Twentieth-Century American Drama
  • ENGL 367 – Twentieth-Century British Drama
  • ENGL 403 – Honours Thesis (on AphraBehn)
  • ENGL 495 – The Twentieth-Century Trial Play

Merton College, University of Oxford:

  • Introduction to Literary Studies (1st year)
  • English Literature: 1900 to the present (1st year)
  • Oscar Wilde: Oxford Programme for Undergraduate Studies.

University of Texas at Austin:

  • The Trial in Twentieth-Century Drama (Senior Seminar – Upper Division Course).
  • Contemporary Drama: 20th-Century British Theatre (Upper Division Course).

University of Oxford (St Catherines’s, St John’s, Lincoln, Merton, Baliol & Wadham Colleges):

  • English Literature 1900 to the present (1st year) for St. John’s College, 2005-7.
  • The History, Theory and Use of the English Language (3rd year)
  • Special Authordissertation (3rd year) Oscar Wilde.
  • Special Topicdissertation (3rd year) Drama in English.

Supplementary Oxford teaching:

  • Restoration Drama at Regent’s Park College, Oxford (2008).
  • Modern British Dramaat Worcester College (2007 and 2009).

Academic Service

Haifa University

  • BA Advisor

MacEwan University

  • English Department Chair Selection Committee – Member (March-April 2013)
  • Undergraduate Conference Committee – Chair (2011-12), Committee (2012-13 & 2013-14)
  • The Department of English Talks – Chair (2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14)
  • Department of English/ Faculty of Arts and Sciences Council – Council Member
  • Department of English Curriculum Committee (Ongoing)

University of Texas at Austin

  • Evaluator for English Speaking Union scholarships to study at the Globe Theatre (2010).
  • Reviewerfor Texas Studies in Literature and Language (2009-2010)

University of Oxford

  • Undergraduate admissions at Merton College (2010) and St. John’s College (2007)
  • Graduate representative at presentations given by candidates for the position of University Lecturer in drama at St Catherine’s College (2007).

Skills Acquired

  • Graduate Teaching Qualification,Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).
  • Grade 3 Alpine Ski Instructor with the British Association of Snowsport Instructors (BASI).