The Department of English Language & Literature, University of Haifa
Fall 2020 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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What a year it’s been.
2020 was the year we were fragmented, each of us at home, framed in our Zoom rectangle, trying to do our best. A newsletter – we thought – might be a way to put these fragments together, to look back and see a coherent entity, something that works, and works together. Reading the following, I hope you will agree with me that while 2019-20 certainly had the worst of times, it also had glimmers of the best of times.
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My eternal gratitude to Hilla and Bernadette who make everything – including this newsletter – happen. Thanks also to my devoted and brilliant colleagues, to our terrific students (especially those who turned on their cameras in class), and to our larger community – I miss our being together.
More than anything else, 2020 has taught me to value the person-to-person encounter, when an idea meets idea, when word meets word. It is at once the simplest and most complicated thing in the world. The best writers convey it, and a good class can create an encounter and hold it there for us to see and examine it. This newsletter serves as a record of many of these encounters, but also as placeholder, reminding us of those to come.
Please stay safe; look after your health and others’ too. It’s what we call solidarity, and it’s what we do when we are at our best. That, and reading.
- Dr. Ayelet Ben-Yishai, Chair.
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“Just press the green button at the bottom center of your screen:” Sharing on Zoom.
“Dr. Beenstock, you are on mute,” a student told me after several minutes of self-lecturing. Teaching on zoom has been humbling and confusing, as the walls separating home from work dissolved and I wandered the bedrooms of my home in search of a quiet corner to talk about how dolls substitute for penises (why did I assign Beauvoir?) while my children fought loudly over the x-box. I felt like Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre, trying to dismiss the yelling in the background, or leaping
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from my seat to prevent the unwanted intrusion of my son looking for his favorite t-shirt. Yet, in adjusting to the new isolation, I found myself valuing the encounters with students more than ever, and appreciating the opportunity to interact meaningfully under duress. The classroom, when are allowed back, will somehow be more than ever like home.
- Dr. Zoe Beenstock
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2020/2021 Departmental Positions
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| M.A. Committee Chair
Dr. Ayelet Langer
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| B.A. Advisor
Dr. Keren Omry
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| Accessibility Liason
Dr. Yosefa Raz
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| Ph.D. Committee Chair
Prof. Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan
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Nice to meet... Our New Faculty Members
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| My main areas of interest are Shakespeare, early modern drama, feminism, and adaptation studies. The book I am now completing is the result of an academic journey into what often feels like an alternate universe—the early modern antitheatrical discourse, in which Shakespeare’s theater, often vilified as "Satan's synagogue," is denounced as a real threat to actors and audiences. While conducting this research, I have become intrigued by plays that deliberately trick and mislead their audience, and my next project will explore the ethical relationship between plays and audiences in the context of cultural concerns about deception and illusionism. In between, I have traced the staging history of Hamlet in Israel, showing how the play was repeatedly used here as a mark of “Europeanness.”
Having recently moved to Haifa, what I enjoy most in my spare time is taking long walks on the beach.
- Dr. Reut Barzilai
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| I study nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature, in conversation with translation and migration studies, gender and sexuality studies, and novel theory. My research focuses on how various modes of alterity are negotiated through the aesthetic features of literary form. I am currently working on a book project which explores the use of internal translation by Jewish immigrant authors of the mass migration period in response to tensions of acculturation. I trace in this translational strategy a distinctly modernist technique for engaging with a crisis of expression and social fragmentation. In addition to this project, I have also been studying transcendentalist feminist politics of language, contending that antebellum women authors’ design of a veiling, spiritual language allows them to envision gender and sex categories as dwelling beyond social expression and discursive inscription. Apart from my academic work, I love listening to vinyl records, playing guitar, hiking, and cooking delicious vegan meals.
- Dr. Danny Luzon
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| Congratulations to Dr. Miryam Sivan, whose novel Make it Concrete is a finalist in the “First Novel” category in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.
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Dr. Ayelet Langer, for her project, Uncovering the Now in Milton: A New Paradigm for Understanding Milton’s Representation of Time.
Dr. Keren Omry, for her project, Slipping Sideways: Alternate History and the Contemporary.
Good luck to you both as you carry out this fascinating research.
Moreover, Congratulations to Dr. Keren Omry on her promotion to Senior Lecturer with tenure!
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Scholarships:
Council of Higher Education Fellowship for MA students of the Arab Community
Mira Hino
Werner Otto Scholarship for Outstanding Arab Women Graduate Students
Haya Onallah
University of Haifa's Scholarship for 2nd Year Excellence in the MA Program
Tasnim Morshad, Hiba Espanyoli,
Lour Hayek, Asol Okab,
Areage Okab
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Departmental Awards:
Hala Rammal, BA Prize for Poetry, “Untitled”.
Nicole Petrov, BA Prize for Fiction, “Aunt Rachel”.
Haya Onalla, MA Prize for Poetry, “Cry Me a Country”.
Itar Mansour, MA Prize for Fiction, “Based on Marc Chagall’s Painting ‘I and the Village’ (1911)”.
Carmit Degani’s BA Seminar Paper, “Learning the Rhythms of the Pains: Trauma, Healing and Language in Silko’s ‘Lullaby’”, for Miriam Sivan’s course “Turn on, Tune in, Drop Out: American Literature of the the 1960s”.
Karen Sharouf’s MA Seminar Paper, “How a Person should be: an Invisible, Ugly and Exceptional Castle”, for Ayelet Ben Yishai’s course “Genres of the Novel.”
Many thanks to Prof. Regenia Gagnier, Prof. Robert Patten, and an anonymous donor for their generous contributions in support of our students.
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Through English Densely: Rethinking the Postcolonial
On December 8, 2019 the Department hosted an international workshop in collaboration with colleagues from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. In this workshop, scholars working in Israel and India were invited to think comparatively about the location from which we research, write, teach, and perform the post/colonial and of the vexed role of the English language in this endeavor. The result was a fascinating conversation between our multilayered locations in South Asia and the Middle East, locations that are central to much contemporary postcolonial inquiry, both as objects of this inquiry and its subjects. On the following day, our tour of Haifa took us to one of these dense postcolonial sites, the Haifa Indian Cemetery, commemorating the 49 Indian soldiers who died in the service of the British Army while “liberating” Haifa in World War I.
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2020 Departmental Colloquium
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Colloquium (Corona Style)
Due to the near-total lockdown during the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, this year’s department colloquium was held in the form of a webinar. Online encounters through sophisticated video-conferencing platforms such as Zoom cannot possibly compare to real-life encounters. Nonetheless, this year’s event brought us together (students and faculty) at a time when we all needed to shake off the rust accumulated during the two-months lockdown.
Faculty and participating students got together on campus and met at the video-conference room where their presentations would be broadcast to online attendees. Dr. Zoe Beenstock chaired the opening panel, which featured research by Dr. Reut Barzilai, Dr. Alex Feldman, and Ph.D. candidate Amit Kardosh. In the first part of the following panel, Dr. Miriam Sivan, Dr. Yosefa Raz, Dr. Lyn Barzilai, and Prof. Bill Freedman read from their creative works and, in the second, the students of Dr. Raz’s creative writing class (Yael Hagiladi, Haya Taha, Alissa Dvoryaninov, Hala Rammal, Itar Mansour, Karen Sharouf, Masha Saman, Maysoon Elias, Miral Fakher Eldeen, and Salma Mustafa) presented their fascinating readings and videos. In the third and last part, our MA thesis students (Itar Mansour, Emily Erlank, Ihab Azar, Haya and Aya Onallah, and Karen Sharouf) spoke about their individual research. At the end of the colloquium, the winners of the best essay and creative writing prizes (see above) were announced.
- Dr. Maurice Ebileeni.
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Lockdown Watch Parties - Nights at the Theatre
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Taking advantage of possibilities afforded by Zoom, and the unprecedented release of online content from the London stage, during lockdown, the English Department hosted two Theatre Watch Parties. On April 18th, students and faculty, past and present, and their friends and relations, joined to watch Howard Brenton’s Drawing the Line (2013), which dramatizes the British partition of India, streamed by the Hampstead theatre. The screening was followed by a lively Q&A, covering topics that ranged from Brexit, to Brechtian stagecraft, and Palestinian statehood. On May 7th, we held our second event, watching Nick Dear’s 2011 adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), directed by Danny Boyle at Britain’s National Theatre, and starring Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch, who alternated in the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature. A poll among the students determined that we would watch the version in which Cumberbatch played the Creature. We were honoured to have a graduate of the department, and an expert on Mary Shelley, Dalal Ghattas, joining us to moderate the after-show discussion. We continue to monitor offerings from the London stage, and will keep you updated on plans for our next event!
- Dr. Alex Feldman
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February 2020 - Campus Kolkata Trip
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"[…] At the center of our 9-day visit was participation in two classes at Jadavpur University (one on the literature of Partition, and one on Indian Writing in English), but our days were packed: exploring the town and its monuments, its unrivaled book culture, its minorities, its religions, its politics past and present. We also took day trips to the Sunderbans and to Santiniketan. There might also have been shopping. And eating. On our penultimate day, I sat on the lawn in the Jadavpur campus “Green Zone” watching my dream come true, as the students sat in small groups, comparing their own experiences as minorities or majorities, their complex linguistic and historical identities, their politics, and cultures. The conversations, as the cliché goes, continued long after it was time to go. I hope that it will keep on going."
- Dr. Ayelet Ben-Yishai, Course Instructor.
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“It was absolutely fascinating to see the book culture here in Kolkata. I couldn’t contain my smile as people waited in long lines to purchase new books - something we don’t see back home. […] Kolkata forces you out of your comfort zone - not to say this is good or bad, but important. And this is precisely what I have felt as an English literature student and what the department has come to mean to me - constantly pushing boundaries, constantly asking us to question.”
- Areage Okab, participating student.
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HAIFA READS…The Handmaid’s Tale
The HAIFA READS tradition started with “Frankenreads” – which we held (together with other worldwide events)-- to celebrate 200 years since the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Last year we decided to gather as a department and study/debate/watch/discuss Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, while next year students have picked George Orwell’s 1984. Hmm, I guess we have a taste for dark dystopias…
The Handmaid’s Tale day (organized by Dr. Feldman & Dr. Raz) involved short lectures/presentations by department faculty, including Dr. Lewin’s lecture on biblical motifs in Atwood, and Dr. Barzilai’s analysis of Margaret Atwood’s cameo in the TV series, where she slaps her own heroine! Other activities included small group discussions, a public screening and discussion of the first episode of the HBO series, a grad student panel on Atwood & the contemporary world with some heated discussion, and PIZZA (including, of course, vegan options). This was a chance to do our thing— i.e. study a text as a department, on a large scale, and see it all come together in a symphonic babble of voices/discussion. By the end of the evening, we were tired but inspired. We only regret we didn’t do any costumes…maybe next year."
- Dr. Yosefa Raz
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Reading George Orwell's 1984
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Save the date for our next Haifa Reads Event - on October 28th.
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"Echoes" Poetry Reading
Carmit Degani, event co-organizer, reports, “The Echoes event was a fantastic opportunity to realize how much creative talent is hidden in the English department and to appreciate the magnitude of the impact that the materials we come across in our studies have on our lives. The most exciting part for me was the open mic at the end of the evening, where both students and faculty members spontaneously shared the works that moved their hearts, in a variety of forms and languages. Haroon Avgana, who attended, wrote, “Hearing your own classmates share their intimate experiences via poetry gives a much more authentic experience of poetry. The evening gave me a glimpse of how poetry manifests itself outside of our textbooks— in the lives of the people around me in university. Therefore, it made me appreciate poetry on a more personal and emotional level.” Anne-Marie Hilo, who also brought freshly roasted chestnuts for all wrote, “The evening provided a rare insight into the hidden talents of my friends and classmates, with many of them taking to the stage and reading some of their personal, original work. I also got to hear my professors have fun and read a favoured poem or two, no longer being confined to a curriculum. The evening was both very enriching and filled with a lot of fun and excitement. Both from being able to interact with my professors outside of University, and from seeing my friends thrive in such a way.”
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Dr. Ayelet Ben-Yishai wrote an Op-Ed in Y-net, titled "Between Benjamin Netanyahu and Indira Gandhi" (in Hebrew).
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Dr. Maurice Ebileeni wrote an Op-Ed in Haaretz on the 2020 elections, titled "What the Israeli Arab Party's Election Gains Actually Mean" (in English).
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Dr. Reut Barzilai speaking about the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
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Dr. Reut Barzilai, was on TV (Channel Kan 11) talking about the Globe Theatre (in Hebrew)!
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Dr. Maurice Ebileeni wrote an Op-Ed in Haaretz, titled "50 Shades of Zionism" (in Hebrew).
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Dr. Ayelet Ben-Yishai on the radio
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Dr. Ayelet Ben-Yishai held a radio interview with "Weekly Journal", in honor of the 200th birthday of the author George Eliot (in Hebrew).
Note: for the specific interview, FF to 35:05.
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Dr. Maurice Ebileeni wrote an Op-Ed in Haaretz, titled "The Dark Heart of Israel" (in Hebrew).
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Dr. Keren Omry on the radio
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Dr. Keren Omry held a radio interview with "Saturday Journal", on the history of the spiritual "Amazing Grace" (in Hebrew).
Note: for the specific interview, FF to 39:55.
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