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Curriculum Vitae


  

Lawrence Besserman – Professor of English

office:             Department of English,

                       The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,

                       91905 Jerusalem, Israel

                       Tel. 001-972-2-588-3984/fax: -588-1245

 

Curriculum Vitae

 

 

 

EDUCATION:

 

  • Columbia College                          1963-67
  • B.A. in English, awarded June 1967 (summa cum laude, phi beta kappa 1966) Harvard University                                      1967-73
  • M.A. in English, awarded June       1968
  • Ph.D. in English, awarded January  1973            

Dissertation: The Story of Job in English Literature

  • Mediaeval Academy of America Vernacular Palaeography Seminar     Summer  1970
  • King s College, University of London, Postgraduate Seminar in Medieval Literature 1971-72
  • British Museum, independent manuscript research 1971-72

 

FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS:

 

  • Danforth Foundation Fellowship                                                              1967-73
  • Woodrow Wilson Graduate Fellowship                                                   1967-72
  • Harvard Graduate Prize Fellowship                                                         1967-72
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend Award       1976
  • Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture Grant                                        1988-89
  • Israel Academy of Arts and Sciences Grant                                             1993-96
  • Israel Academy of Arts and Sciences Grant                                             2002-05

 

EMPLOYMENT:

 

  • Teaching Fellow, English Department, Harvard University                     1968-71
  • Assistant Professor, English Department, Harvard University                 1972-77
  • Lecturer, English Department, Hebrew University                                  1977-79
  • Senior Lecturer (tenured), English Department, Hebrew University        1980-88
  • Director, Office of Academic Affairs of the Hebrew University, in
    New York (on leave from the English department at Hebrew Univ.)      1988-91
  • Associate Professor of English, Hebrew University                                1990-96
  • Professor of English, Hebrew University                          October 1996-present                          


PROFESSIONAL SERVICE:      Tenure reviews: Grinnell College, Texas A&M, UCLA


CONFERENCE PAPERS, SEMINARS, GUEST LECTURES:

  1. Co-organizer, Co-chairman (with Professors Sanford Budick and Yair Zakevitch) of Conference on Biblical Narrative and Modern Poetics, Dec. 1981; opening remarks: Biblical Facts and Fictional Exegetes (6 pages)
  2. Paper presented at Jewish Publication Society--Van Leer Institute Symposium on Biblical Translation, April 1982;  Early English Bible Translations (12 pages)
  3. Paper presented at Bar Ilan University conference on The Bible and Modern Literature, May 1982; Chaucer and the Bible: Parody and Authority in the Pardoner s Tale (10 pages)
  4. Paper presented at Ben Gurion University conference on Middle English Literature , September 1982; Chaucerian Exegesis (20 pages)
  5. Lecture at New York University, English Department, Dec. 1984; The Idea of the Green Knight (25 pages)
  6. Lecture at the Jerusalem Near Eastern Studies Center-Brigham Young University, 14 January 1988; Early English Bible Translation, through 1611 (20 pages)
  7. Paper presented at the seminar on Institutions of Interpretation at the Hebrew University, June 1988, organized by Professors Sanford Budick and Wolfgang Iser: Chaucer s Epistle to Bukton and Truth in Biblical Interpretation: Some Medieval and Modern Contexts (42 pages)
  8. Paper presented at the Modern Language Association of America s annual convention in New Orleans, December 29,1988; Troilus and the Bible: A Critical Perspective (12 pages)
  9. Lecture to the English Department of the State University of New York at Buffalo, 14 Nov. 1988; Chaucer s Epistle to Bukton and Truth in Biblical Interpretation (25 pgs.)
  10. Same lecture (as in no. 9, above) presented to the  English Department and Medieval Club of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 6 March 1989
  11. Same lecture (as in no. 9, above) presented to the Medieval Club and English Department of the City University of New York, Graduate Center,10 May 1989
  12. Same lecture (as in no. 9, above) presented and to the Harvard Medieval Doctoral Conference, November 9, 1989
  13. Paper presented in the seminar on Institutions of Interpretation at the Hebrew University, October, 1989, organized by Professors Sanford Budick and Wolfgang Iser: Griselda Transformed [on Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Chaucer] (65 pages)
  14. Paper presented at the August 1990 conference of the New Chaucer Society in Canterbury, England; Chaucer and Wyclif on Truth (12 pages)
  15. Paper presented in the series of seminars on Institutions of Interpretation at the Hebrew University, August, 1991, organized by Professors Sanford Budick and Wolfgang Iser: Augustine, Chaucer, and the Translation of Biblical Poetics (57 pages)
  16. Paper presented at the Modern Language Association of America s annual convention in San Francisco, December,1991; Chaucer, Gower, and the Bible (12 pages)
  17. Project organizer: Periodization: Old Paradigms and New Perspectives. Twenty-three lectures, organized by me under the auspices of the Center for Literary Studies, Hebrew University, October 1991-January 1993
  18. Lecture at New York University, in the Fales Colloquium program of the English Department, February 17, 1993: Augustine, Chaucer, and the Translation of Biblical Poetics.
  19. Chair, opening plenary session, Bar-Ilan University conference on Susannah and the Elders: Ethics and Epistemology.   June 1st, 1994
  20. Paper presented at the Medieval Institute, Western Michigan Univ., Kalamazoo, Mich., May 7, 1997: Chaucer’s Multi-Word Verbs” (20 pages)
  21. Paper presented at the Medieval Institute, Western Michigan Univ., Kalamazoo, Mich., May 8, 1997: “Chaucer and the Passion (with Special Reference to Troilus and Criseyde” (15 pages)
  22. Lecture at University of Pennsylvania, English Dept., February 1998: “Ideology, Antisemitism, and Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale” (25 pages)
  23. Lecture at SUNY-Stony Brook, English Dept. and Humanities Center, February 1998: Ideology, Antisemitism, and Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale” (25 pages)
  24. Lecture at New York University, English Dept. and Medieval and Renaissance Texts Series, February 3, 1998: “Ideology, Antisemitism, and Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale” (25 pages)
  25. Chair, second seminar in the ongoing project on “Paradigms of Learning in Diverse Cultures,” under the auspices of the Center for Literary Studies, Hebrew University, December 22, 1999
  26. Lecture at Columbia University, University Seminar in Medieval Studies, February 8, 2000: “Ideology, Anti-semitism, and Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale” (25 pages)
  27. Paper presented at the UCLA Conference of the International Society for the History of the English Language on “Studies in the History of the English Language,” May 22, 2000: (with Benji Wald): “The Development of the English Verb + Verb Compound to the Twenty-First Century” (20 pages)
  28. Paper presented at the Ben-Gurion University Conference of The Interuniversity Forum on the Early/Early Modern Periods, June 1, 2000: “Ideology, Antisemitism, and Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale” (25 pages)
  29. Paper presented in the ongoing project on “Paradigms of Learning in Diverse Cultures,” under the auspices of the Center for Literary Studies, Hebrew University, April 5, 2000: “Learning as ‘Discipleship’: With special reference to the Lollard Educational Program” (20 pages)
  30. Paper presented in the final workshop of the project on “Paradigms of Learning in Diverse Cultures,” under the auspices of the Center for Literary Studies, Hebrew University, 21 June 2000: “Learning as ‘Discipleship’: With special reference to the Lollard Educational Program” (45 pages)
  31. Paper presented at the New Chaucer Society Conference, London, 14-17 July 2000, on “Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and the Durham Ordinances of 1385” (5 pages)
  32. Chair and Respondent, to Professor Ellen Spolsky’s lecture, “Seeing God: the Possibilities and Problems,” Forum on the Early/Early Modern Periods in England, Bar-Ilan University 10 January, 2001
  33. Paper presented at the Hebrew University Conference on “‘Fathers’ and ‘Founders’ in Ancient Literary Traditions,” June 9, 2001: “Was Chaucer the ‘Father of English Poetry’?” (15 pages)
  34. Project organizer: twenty lectures, commissioned and organized by me under the auspices of the Center for Literary Studies, Hebrew University, on “The Sacred and the Secular: Conflict, Convergence, Co-existence.”  The first part of the conference took place on 25-26 June 2001, and the second and final part is planned for 24-26 June 2002. My paper, presented on 25 June 2001, was on “Sacred and Secular in Middle English Lyric Poetry: ‘Maiden in the Mor Lay’” (20 pages)
  35. “Sacred and Secular in Middle English Lyric Poetry: ‘I Sing of a Maiden’” (17 pages).  Presented at the conference on “The Sacred and the Secular,” 25 June 2002
  36. Paper presented at the New Chaucer Society Conference, Boulder, Colorado, 18-21 July 2002, on“Chaucer and Vernacular Discourses on ‘Friendship’” (8 pages)

 

For the List of Publications go to the page PUBLICATIONS

 

 
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