Chanita Goodblatt

Personal Details

Chanita Goodblatt.  Professor Emerita

Dept. of Foreign Literatures & Linguistics

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 8410501 Israel

E-mail: chanita@bgu.ac.il                             

 

Links

Lyre:    https://biupress.org/index.php/lyre

Skene:  https://skenejournal.skeneproject.it/index.php/JTDS/issue/view/30

 

Teaching Interests

English Renaissance Literary Culture

Reading Women’s Literary and Life-Writing

Poetry and Poetics

 

Research Interests

1. Biblical Culture in Early Modern Europe

My work in this area of research has been supported by four grants from the Israel Science Foundation and by a Fritz Thyssen Stiftung Grant.

a. Written with the Fingers of Man’s Hand: John Donne and Christian Hebraism.

Three major points have distinguished this effort.  First, the discussion of Donne’s study of the Hebrew Bible has included an investigation into the complex Jewish exegetical tradition, as well as into the direct and indirect paths by which this tradition reached Donne. Secondly, a discussion of Donne’s biblical hermeneutics has necessarily encountered the textual and religious polemic involved in biblical exegesis.  Finally, a flexible understanding of exegetical connections has been maintained, reflecting the intertwined, dialogic character of the Jewish and Christian exegetical projects.

By mapping out the links between the works of this major writer and preacher, and the intellectual and religious endeavor of Christian Hebraism, the project will contribute to the study of literary texts and traditions in Reformation England.  

b. Jewish and Christian Voices in English Reformation Biblical Drama: Enacting Family and Monarchy

English Biblical drama of the sixteenth century resounds with a variety of Jewish and Christian voices.  Whether embodied as characters or manifested as exegetical and performative strategies, these voices participate in the central Reformation project of biblical translation.  Such translations and dramatic texts are certainly enriched by studying them within the wider context of medieval and early modern biblical scholarship, which is implemented in biblical translations, commentaries and sermons.  This approach is one significant contribution of the present project, as it studies the reciprocal illumination of Bible and Drama.  I explore the way in which the interpretive cruxes in the biblical text generate the dramatic text and performance, as well as how the drama’s enactment underlines the ethical and theological issues as the heart of the biblical text.

By looking at English Reformation biblical drama through a double-edged prism of exegetical and performative perspectives, I propose to add a new dimension to the existing discussion of the historical resonance of these plays.  Jewish and Christian Voices in English Reformation Biblical Drama integrates Jewish and Christian exegetical traditions with the study of Reformation biblical drama.  In doing so, this book recovers the interpretive and performative powers of both biblical and dramatic texts.

c. Donne and the Bible.

As poet, preacher and translator, Donne participated in the central Reformation project of biblical scholarship.  This special issue will focus on how he engaged the biblical text and the various biblical translations and commentaries (e.g., English vs. Continental, Protestant vs. Catholic).  In this context, several issues reside at the center of the consideration of Donne’s multi-genred corpus (sermons, translations, theological tracts).  I contributed both the integrative introduction, as well as an essay on Donne’s use of the Targum.

d. Transnational Dimensions in English, German and Yiddish Early Modern Drama: To Play the Fool  

I focus on the performative dimensions of the Fool in English, German and Yiddish Early Modern Drama.  These plays have only recently been translated into English, and so provide a newly-found and fascinating opportunity to study transnational theatrical culture.

2. Poetry and Poetics

a. Cognitive Literary Studies: Metaphor

The research looks to a tradition of intellectual endeavor, which favors empirical investigation of cognitive processes through the use of verbal protocols. This project has aligned itself with this tradition, presenting a distinct interweaving of these two disciplines (the study of memory, perception, problem solving; and the reading of literary texts) in my research on metaphor with a cognitive psychologist.  We have studied a variety of poetic texts, within a Gestalt-Interactionist theory of metaphor, developing as well both textual analyses of poetic texts and the results of empirical investigations of metaphor informed by this theory.  Furthermore, we have also developed a methodological strategy with the cognitive psychologist, which juxtaposes an analysis of individual protocols, generated online by a reader thinking aloud, with a depiction of the reading process by means of a flowchart (“Metaphor Comprehension as Problem Solving”; From Practical Criticism to the Practice of Literary Criticism”).  We have thus argued two major points:  that an informed reading of a poetic text is essential for productive research in metaphor; and that an empirical investigation of metaphor comprehension can contribute to a more refined understanding of both the text and the theory.  Our most recent publication is

b. Poetry

The concept of poetry as political and cultural discourse is a central precept of my project on contemporary Hebrew and American poetry.  To regard it in this light is, in Roger Fowler’s words about literature in general, “to stress its interpersonal and institutional dimensions, concentrating on those parts of textual structure which reflect and which influence relations within society.”  The present project utilizes critical tools and conceptual distinctions taken from taken from Bakhtinian narratology and discourse analysis, in order to study lyric texts as directly engaged with contemporary political and cultural texts.  Such a strategy focuses on two major issues: the establishing of the political and cultural situations in the period relevant to the texts; and the nature – and degree of – continuity – between those generic, conventional expectations of the lyric texts and the political/cultural context in which it is created.

My work in this area of research has been supported by awards from the Faculty of the Humanities & Social Sciences and the Dean for Research and Development, Ben-Gurion University. 

c. Lyre:  Studies in Poetry and Lyric, Co-Editor

Lyre: Studies in Poetry and Lyric is a peer-reviewed, online and open-access journal in English.  It is published by Bar-Ilan University Press and the Department of Literature of the Jewish People at Bar-Ilan University.  Lyre is unique in its dedication to highlighting the transcultural and translingual dimensions of both the Poetry of Hebrew and Jewish Languages, and the Poetry of Israel.  Furthermore, Lyre is also unique in comprising two sections:  one which contains scholarly articles on poetry, as well as essays by poets; and one which contains original poetry.  This combination creates a space for conversation between scholars and poets, which further crosses cultures and languages.  While there are literary journals in which poetry is published, and journals in which scholarly articles on poetry are published—Lyre positions poetry at the center of an innovative approach.  This approach delineates a shared space for scholarship and poetic creativity, focusing on a major genre that spans historical periods, languages and cultures of Jewish and Israeli experiences.

3. Writing and Editing a Life in Early Modern Scholarship: Evelyn Mary Spearing Simpson

“Biographies of modern women scholars are rare,” writes the art historian Frances Spalding in her TLS review of the biography of the classicist scholar Jane Harrison (1850-1928) by Annabel Robinson (herself a classicist scholar).  Robinson’s point of entry into her biography of Harrison was William Calder’s proposal that a “woman might write the life or edit the letters of Jane Ellen Harrison, a passionate scholar working in an important field and the pioneer in her struggle to find a place in a man’s world.”  Calder’s integration of the subjective and the scholarly—which may be perceived as possibly limiting the range of those who would aspire to write a particular biography—recognizes the need for what Sara Alpern terms “an active, not a neutral, voice from the biographer.  It is noteworthy that the other biographers of Harrison, and of the archeologist Tessa Verney Wheeler (1893-1936) as well, were also women scholars who raised questions about their respective disciplines and about the particular situation of academic and professional women—both in terms of a woman’s authority, and of the singular scholarly concept of her discipline.  It is certainly time that to this list be added a reevaluation of the life and scholarship of Evelyn Simpson(emphasized in my two essays published on her life and work;  “The University is a Paradise” and “An Unpublished Manuscript on John Donne”), one that can evaluate her intense involvement in two extraordinary endeavors of her time:  the access of women to higher education; and the redefinition of the book in terms of its bibliographical, material and literary existence. 

My work on Simpson has been supported by a Fellowship from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.   

 

Scientific Publications

(a) Authored Books

1. Goodblatt, Chanita. 2010.  The Christian Hebraism of John Donne:  Written with the Fingers of Man’s Hand.  Pittsburgh, Pa.:  Duquesne University Press.
2. Goodblatt, Chanita. 2018.  Jewish and Christian Voices in English Reformation Biblical Drama:  Enacting Family and Monarchy.  Routledge Series in Renaissance Literature and Culture.  New York:  Routledge.
3. Goodblatt, Chanita^PI and Joseph Glicksohn^PI. 2022. The Gestalts of Mind and Text.  Series:  Studies and Research in the Psychology of Art.  Ed.  Ian Verstegen.  London:  Routledge. 

(b) Editorship of Collected Volumes

1. Goodblatt, Chanita^PI and Howard Kreisel^PI. Eds.  2006. Tradition, Heterodoxy and Religious Culture:  Judaism and Christianity in the Early Modern Period.  Goldstein-Goren Library of Jewish Thought. No. 6.  Be’er-Sheva, Israel:  Ben- Gurion University Press.
2. Hurley, Ann^PI and Chanita Goodblatt^PI, eds. 2009. Women Editing/Editing Women: Early Modern Women Writers and the New Textualism.  Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England:  Cambridge Scholars Press.
3. Marotti, Arthur^PI and Chanita Goodblatt^PI. Eds.  2013. Religious Diversity in Early Modern English Texts:  Catholic, Jewish, Feminist and Secular Dimensions.  Detroit:  Wayne State University Press.
4. Goodblatt, Chanita. Ed.  2015.  John Donne and the Bible.  John Donne Journal.  Special Issue.  Volume 34.
5. Goodblatt, Chanita^PI and Joseph Glicksohn^PI. Eds. 2017. Bidirectionality in Metaphor.  Special Issue.  Poetics Today.  38.1.
6. Goodblatt, Chanita^PI and Sean McDowell^PI. Eds. 2018-2019 (copyright 2023).  Recovering and Rediscovering the Conceit.  John Donne Journal. Special Issue.  Volume 37.
7. Goodblatt, Chanita^PI and Eva von Contzen.^PI Eds. 2020. Enacting the Bible in Medieval and Early Modern Drama.  Manchester:  Manchester University Press.
8. Goodblatt, Chanita. Ed.  2020.  Poetry in Israel:  Forging Identity. CLCWeb:  Comparative Literature and Culture.  Special Issue.
9. Goodblatt, Chanita^PI and Haim Kreisel^PI. 2021. Eds. Reading the Bible in the Pre-Modern World: Interpretation, Performance and Image. Be’er-Sheva, Israel:  Ben-Gurion University Press.
10.  Chanita Goodblatt. Editor. 2023. Performing the Book of Esther in Early Modern Europe. Skenè. Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies. Special Issue 9.1.
11.  Katie Calloway^PI and Chanita Goodblatt ^PI. Eds. 2026. Recognizing our Religious Allegiances in Early Modern Literary Scholarship. Baylor University Press.

 

(c) Refereed Chapters in Collective Volumes: From 2015

1. Goodblatt, Chanita. 2016. “Poetic Metaphor:  A Study of Three Modernist Poems” [Hebrew].  In Essays on Dan Pagis.  Ed. Hannan Hever.  80-110. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute.
2. Goodblatt, Chanita. 2020. “Tropes of War in War on Earth” [Hebrew].  In The Works of Uri Zvi Grinberg in the 1920’s:  Research and Documents.  Ed. Avidov Lipsker and Tamar Wolf-Monzon.  327-68.  Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press.
3. Goodblatt, Chanita and Eva von Contzen. 2020. “Introduction:  Enacting the Bible in Medieval and Early Modern Drama.” In Enacting the Bible in Medieval and Early Modern Drama.  Eds. Eva von Contzen and Chanita Goodblatt. 1-9. Manchester:  Manchester University Press.
4. Goodblatt, Chanita. 2020. “To Play the Fool:  The Book of Esther in Early Modern Biblical Drama.”  In Enacting the Bible in Medieval and Early Modern Drama.  Eds. Eva von Contzen and Chanita Goodblatt. 232-52.  Manchester University Press.            
5. Glicksohn, Joseph ^PI and Chanita Goodblatt ^PI. 2021. “Empirical Studies of Poetic Metaphor.”  In Handbook of Empirical Literary Studies.  Ed.  Arthur Jacobs and Don Kuiken. 121-43.  De Gruyter.
6. Goodblatt, Chanita and Haim Kreisel^PI. 2021. “Introduction.” In Reading the Bible in the Pre-Modern World: Interpretation, Performance and Image.  Ed.  Chanita Goodblatt and Haim Kreisel.  vii-xxxvi. Ben- Gurion University Press.
7. Glicksohn, Joseph ^PI and Chanita Goodblatt ^PI. 2025. “Poetry and Metaphor.”  In Handbook of Gestalt-Theoretical Psychology of Art.  285-304.  Ed. Walter Coppola.  Routledge.
8. Goodblatt, Chanita. 2026. “Between Lemberg and Warsaw:  Publication, Paratext, Poetics” [Hebrew].  In Studies on Uri Zvi Grinberg.  Ed. Tamar Wolf-Monzon.  Bar-Ilan University Press.
9. Chanita Goodblatt. 2026. “The Anonymous Poem Ruth Revived (1639) and Multi-Varied Readings of the Book of Ruth.”  In  Recognizing our Religious Allegiances in Early Modern Literary Scholarship.  Ed. Katie Calloway and Chanita Goodblatt.  Baylor University Press.  
10. Goodblatt, Chanita. In Process. “George Herbert and the Hebrew Bible.” In The Oxford Handbook of George Herbert. Ed. Kimberly Johnson and Tessie Prakas.  Oxford University Press.

 

(d) Refereed Articles in Scientific Journals: From 2015

1. Goodblatt, Chanita. 2015. “Introduction: John Donne and the Bible.”  John Donne Journal 34:
2. Goodblatt, Chanita. 2015. “The Targum or Chaldee Paraphrase:  Reading as Interpretation in John Donne’s Sermons.”  John Donne Journal 34:  29-57.
3. Goodblatt, Chanita^PI and Joseph Glicksohn^PI. 2016. “Bidirectionality in Poetic Metaphor: William Carlos Williams and Imagist Poetry.”  Versus: Quaderni di Studi Semiotici 122: 83-99.
4. Goodblatt, Chanita^PI and Joseph Glicksohn^PI. 2017. “Discordia Concors: Embodied Cognition and a Bidirectional Reading of Metaphor.”  Poetics Today 38.1:  163-88.
5. Goodblatt, Chanita^PI and Joseph Glicksohn^PI. 2017. “Introduction:  Bidirectionality in Metaphor.”  Poetics Today 38.1:  1-14.
6. Goodblatt, Chanita^PI and Joseph Glicksohn^PI. 2018-2019 (copyright 2023). “‘The Bait’ and ‘A Valediction of Weeping’: A Cognitive Literary Study of Metaphor as Conceit.” John Donne Journal 37:  165-98.
7. Goodblatt, Chanita. 2020. “Life is a Story:  Narrative and Identity in the War Poetry of Dan Pagis and Charles Simic.”  CLCWeb:  Comparative Literature and Culture.
8. Goodblatt, Chanita. 2023. “Modena’s L’Ester: a Venetian-Jewish Play in Early Modern Europe.” Skenè. Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies 9.1: 37-62.

 

Translations

1. Goodblatt, Chanita. 1985. “Happy Soldiers” [English. Mishka Ben-David.  Ariel: A Quarterly Review of Arts and Letters in Israel.  62: 4-15.
2. Itamar, Yoav and Chanita Goodblatt. 2024-2025. “William Carlos Williams: The Desert Music” [Hebrew].  Ho! – Literary Magazine.  Editor: Dory Manor. 28 (Winter):  102-15.