Faculty

Heidi Brayman Hackel, Associate Professor
Ph.D. Columbia University

(951) 827-1909
heidi.braymanhackel@ucr.edu

Research Areas: Early modern/Renaissance English literature and culture, history of the book, gender studies, transatlantic studies

 

Heidi Brayman Hackel writes and teaches about the literature and culture of early modern England (1500-1700).  She is the author of Reading Material in Early Modern England: Print, Gender, and Literacy (Cambridge UP, 2005) and the co-editor with Catherine Kelly of Reading Women: Literacy, Authorship, and Culture in the Atlantic World, 1500-1800 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007).  Her current book project, “‘Dumb Eloquence’: Deafness and Gesture in Early Modern England” is a cultural history of muteness and manual gesture across four institutions -- the theater, law, education, and religion -- that engaged significantly with vocal silence and the problems it poses.  Her interest in gesture has grown beyond the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century stage to include an exploration of American Sign Language, silent film, and Indian mudra.  Along with Ian Moulton, she is co-editing “Teaching from the Archives,” a volume about bringing traditional and electronic archival materials into graduate and undergraduate classrooms.