The Department of English Language & Literature, University of Haifa
Fall 2021 Newsletter
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If you cannot see the entire newsletter,
make sure to click "view entire message" at the end of this email.
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Greetings from the Department Chair
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Is it over? Can we come back? For how long?
We find ourselves once again heading into a new year with more questions than answers, but with hope that this time it will work, and that our classrooms, offices, and the beloved sixteenth floor will buzz again with the brilliance and laughter of students and colleagues (we’ll even take complaints about “too much reading”!)
Still, as the newsletter shows, we’ve managed to do quite a bit while we have been “away”: new research, new people, promotions, graduations, prizes, and events.
Finally, I want to encourage our students –
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old and new – to show up with all your smarts, your fierceness, your curiosity, and your thoughts. In good times and in difficulty, we want to hear your voices; the world needs them now more than ever.
See you at Haifa Reads… Pride and Prejudice on October 28!
- By: Dr. Ayelet Ben-Yishai, Department Chair
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Congratulations to Mariana Akkawi & Islam Hasadiya for winning the BA Honors Prize.
Congratulations to Khadeejah Fahoum, Carmit Degani, & Ezar Naara for winning the MA Second-Year Prize.
Dr. Zoe Beenstock received an ISF Grant for her project "A New Sacred Geography: Imagining Biblical Antiquarian History in British Romantic Literature."
Dr. Danny Luzon was selected as a member of The Young Scholars Forum in the Humanities and Social Sciences, hosted by The Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
And last but not least, congratulations also to Dr. Alex Feldman for his promotion to Senior Lecturer with tenure in the Department.
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Year-Opening Event: Haifa Reads... Pride & Prejudice
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Nice to meet... Our Teaching Fellows
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I am a direct-track Ph.D. student in the English Department at the University of Haifa and the recipient of the Rotenstreich Scholarship for outstanding Ph.D. students in the humanities. Currently, I am also a teaching assistant for the course “Survey IV – Twentieth-Century English Literature”. My dissertation, supervised by Professor Noam Flinker, offers a reading of John Milton’s Paradise Lost through the lens of contemporary family systems theories. Lately, my research has become more distinctively feminist, and the recent two chapters of my dissertation focus on the complexity of the term “family” for the female characters of the epic – Eve and
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Sin. In my free time, when I am not writing, reading, or thinking about “Man's First Disobedience, and the Fruit / Of that Forbidden Tree” (Paradise Lost, 1. 1-2), I enjoy writing my own poetry, spending quality time with my husband Elad, and our daughters, Lily and Sophia, travelling, hiking and having picnics in the Carmel mountains, baking delicious cakes and biscuits, and watching the picturesque sunsets of Haifa from the window of our new home.
- Ms. Irena Rudiakov
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My name is Jenny Wale, and I am a Ph.D. student in the English department under the supervision of Dr. Ben-Yishai. My research focuses on Christianity and realism (both Victorian and contemporary) and considers the tensions between the two through post-secular and affect theories in particular. My dissertation looks into how clergypersons in realist novels provide a significant meeting point of ideal and realistic perspectives and further explores the friction created when representing religion and religious figures through the medium of the realist novel.
In addition to studying literature, I have a passion for teaching and will be one of the
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instructors on the Survey II course of 18th and 19th Century literature in the second semester. I especially enjoy delivering classes on Victorian literature. When I am not teaching or researching, I enjoy spending time with my three children, walking, reading novels and watching period dramas.
- Ms. Jenny Wale
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My name is Reem Mansour and I am a Ph.D. student. I am writing my dissertation on Neo-Slave narratives under the supervision of Dr. Keren Omry. My scholarly interests span the fields of Speculative Fiction, African-American slave narratives, Black Feminism, Critical Race Studies, Critical Race Feminism, and Intersectionality. I primarily focus on politics of representation, empowerment, and revisionist history in contemporary narratives of slavery produced in the late twentieth-century (after World War II) and early twenty-first century. I am also a recipient of the Ph.D. Distinction Scholarship awarded by the University of Haifa. In the Spring semester
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I will teach Introduction to Literary Forms - Prose with Dr. Maurice Ebileeni. In my free time I practice mindfulness meditation and play board games. I also enjoy reading and writing poetry; some of my favorite poets include Lucille Clifton, Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, Gwendolyn Brooks and many more.
- Ms. Reem Mansour
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Department Graduation
Happy graduation ceremonies are all alike; but this year's graduation ceremony was happy in its own way. After a year and a half of online teaching, with the occasional student yawning in their pyjamas in the face of a series of stressed lecturers sitting in front of their shabby background bookshelves, faculty and students – accompanied by family and friends
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– finally met in person at the glamorous Dikanat hall, all dressed in their finest clothes. It was a lovely event. The head of department, Dr. Ben Yishai, warmly welcomed students, staff, and parents, the Dean graced us with his presence, and the BA and MA advisors sang the students’ praises. But the most impressive were the speeches delivered by the BA and MA students’ representatives, Rima Khavekina and Haya Onallah, and the winners of the writing competition, Mariana Akkawi and Nour Ibrahim, who shared their creative writing works with the excited community of the English Department.
- By: Dr. Ayelet Langer
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Department Colloquium
As online academic events are becoming less overwhelming and our level of technological literacy is today well advanced compared to the pre-Covid era, faculty and students got together once again in the video-conferencing room for this year’s colloquium. Prepared, confident, and with very few technical issues, participants delivered their excellent talks to the online audience and there was even room for a little song. All-in-all, we got to spend a pleasant day together and learn about our colleagues’ and fellow students’ research and creative talents.
Dr. Jenn Lewin chaired the opening panel which featured wonderful presentations by Dr. Julie Chajes, Ms. Irena Rudiakov, and Dr. Keren Omry. In the second panel (the MA research
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workshop), our students Asol Okab, Areage Okab, Lour Hayek, Hiba Espanyoli, and Tasneem Morshed spoke about their respective research projects. In the third and last panel, Professor Bill Freedman, Dr. Miryam Sivan, Dr. Jenn Lewin, Dr. Lyn Barzilai, and Dr. Yosefa Raz read from their poetry and this was then followed by students from Dr. Raz’s creative writing class reading from their works. At the end of the day, the winners of the best essay and creative writing prizes (see below) were announced.
- By: Dr. Maurice E'bileeni
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Alumni Panel
"What will you do with a degree in English?"
We thought it was time to address head on the question we've all heard a thousand times, and ask graduates of the department what they do today and how it relates to their studies. Four former students volunteered to share their experiences with a packed Zoom room of current students, applicants, and recent alumni. While the four of them had widely divergent experiences and jobs, their answers were surprisingly similar. They all stressed that in today's job market, one never stops learning – new skills, new fields, new modes of analysis. This, they added, was precisely what the English Department had prepared them for. In their years at university, they had mastered
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superior learning and analytical skills, an in-depth understanding of culture, and – of course – first-rate English. The rest, they repeatedly said, comes easily and is learned on the job.
Thank you very much to Layan AsSayed (MA 2015), Inna Braverman (BA 2007), Labibah Hasash Mousa (BA 2009), and Amit Kardosh (Ph.D. almost completed) for sharing their insights. Next up, we tackle that other perennial question, "Are you going to be a teacher?"
- By: Dr. Ayelet Ben-Yishai
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Recent Faculty Publications
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- Dr. Alex Feldman published a chapter about the influence of Oscar Wilde on Tom Stoppard.
Feldman, Alex. “Oscar Wilde.” Tom Stoppard in Context. Ed. David Kornhaber and James N. Loehlin. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2021. 53-61. Print. Literature in Context.
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- Dr. Ayelet Langer has published three new articles on Milton's work:
Langer, Ayelet. “Identity over Time in Paradise Lost,” UTQ 90.1 (2021): 42-57.
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Langer, Ayelet. "Milton’s Aristotelian Transformations in the Representation of Regenerative Change.” Modern Philology 118.3 (2021): 390-408.
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Langer, Ayelet. "'Meanwhile:' Paradisian Infinity in Milton’s Paradise Lost.” Partial Answers 19.1 (2021).
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- Dr. Zoe Beenstock's new article examines Romantic theories of the imagination and the eighteenth-century novel. See also the Introduction to a special issue, on mapping in the nineteenth century, co-written with Dr. Benziman.
Beenstock, Zoe. “How Samuel Taylor Coleridge Suspended Henry Fielding’s Disbelief,” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 60.4 (October 2020), 673-92.
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Benziman, Galia and Beenstock, Zoe. “Mapping Victorian Empires, Cultures, Identities: Introduction.” Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 19.2 (June, 2021), 201-209.
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- Dr. Ayelet Ben-Yishai wrote about teaching the South Asian Partition to Palestinian and Jewish students in Haifa.
Ben-Yishai, Ayelet. "Through English, Densely: Partitions, Complicity, and the Anglophone Classroom." Representations 155.1 (2021): 139-152.
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- Dr. Julie Chajes co-edited the following book. It is described as the first ever book-length publication devoted to the Cosmic Movement.
Chajes, Julie, and Boaz Huss. The Cosmic Movement : Sources, Contexts, Impact. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2020.
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Chajes, Julie (2021). “Our Habit Should Not Do Such Things! The Diary of a Protestant Nun.” In The Cosmic Movement: Sources, Contexts, Impact. Edited by Julie Chajes and Boaz Huss. Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University Press.
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