Berkeley English Lecturers and Postdocs

Joel B. Altman

Joel B. Altman

Emeritus

237 Wheeler
Mondays 11-12 and by appointment
jbaltman@berkeley.edu


Books
The Improbability of Othello: Rhetorical Anthropology and Shakespearean Selfhood
The Improbability of Othello: Rhetorical Anthropology and Shakespearean Selfhood

Shakespeare’s dramatis personae exist in a world of supposition, struggling to connect knowledge that cannot be had, judgments that must be made, and actions that need to be taken.  For them, probability—what they and others might be persuaded to be....(read more)


Selected Publications and Papers Delivered

"'For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak / With most miraculous organ': Shakespeare's Talking Dumb Shows," Shakespearean Theater Conference, Stratford, Ontario, June, 2015; "What did Hermione's Statue look like?  The Four Ladies of Mantua and the Science of True Opinion," Shakespeare Association of America, St. Louis, April 2014; "'A sad tale's best for winter,' but for spring a comedy is better: Time, Turn, and Genre in The Winter's Tale," Shakespeare Association of America, Toronto, April, 2013; "Ekphrasis," in Early Modern Theatricality, ed. Henry S. Turner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013-2014); "Virtual Presence and Vicarious Identity in The First Tetralogy," in Shakespeare Up Close: Reading Early Modern Texts, ed. Russ McDonald, Nicholas D. Nace, and Travis D. Williams (London: Arden Shakespeare, 2012); "Julio at the Crossroads: Intertextuality, Intermediality, and Transfiguration in 'The Winter's Tale,' Harvard Renaissance Colloquium, April 2012.  "'Your sorrow was too sore laid on': Shakespeare and the Subject of Ekphrasis." University of St. Andrews, UK, October 2011; Shakespeare Association of America, Bellevue WA, April 2011. "Giulio Romano and the Rhetoric of Visual Representation in 'The Winter's Tale.'" Doreen Townsend Center for the Humanities, Berkeley, April 2010.


Current Research

Shakespeare, Rhetoric, and the Visual Arts.


English Department Classes