Never A Dull Moment: Teaching and the Art of Performance (Feminism Takes Center Stage) [Paperback]

Jyl Lynn Felman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415926602 | ISBN-13: 978-0415926607 | Publication Date: April 1, 2001 | Edition: 1

Teachers are really performers, classrooms are stages, and students the captivated audience. In beautiful prose, Felman invites us to watch her one woman show on the art of performance in today's classrooms. These essays take on the greatest hits of the academy: identity politics, sexual harrassment, academic censorship, and radical pedagogy. Felman's book is a performance not to be missed.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Few college professors can match Felman's flair in the classroom. A professor at Brandeis whose books include Cravings: A Sensual Memoir, she teaches such classes as "Blacks and Jews," "Reading and Writing Autobiography," and "Introduction to Women's Studies" but is also a performance artist with her own one-woman show. Felman effectively brings this expertise to her classroom, which is usually filled to capacity. Through her own "performance," she actively engages her students in the learning process and creates an atmosphere in which intimacy between students and a strong teacher-student bond develop. Students leaving a "normal" college class may talk about what was just learned, but according to one student, those leaving Felman's sessions are more apt to talk about how they feel. In this collection of essays, Felman reveals how she helps her students understand the "big picture" and how she teaches them to transform themselves while discarding the distorted views they may have about others. And although she discusses the present state of academia in great detail, she also discusses social structure, covering topics such as feminism, gender and racial biases, and sexual orientation. A good addition to most libraries. Terry Christner, Hutchinson P.L., KS
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Jyl Lynn Felman rewrites feminist pedagogy as a vibrant, political, and self-critical performative practice. Felman connects theory to experience, knowledge to risk-taking, and learning to the specificity of place and context. This is a book that equates pedagogy with courage, teaching with hope, and politics with particular bodies mutually crossing into uncharted territories where meaning, passion, justice, and critique open up new possibilities for critical learning and social change. Never a Dull Moment is a moving, courageous, and insightful book that every teacher, student, administrator, and parent should read. -- Henry Giroux, author of Fugitive Cultures
Enlivened and literary...Readers are invited behind university scenes to ponder, from the inside out, a working portrait of the teacher. Felman animates a lively cast of characters, where even the curriculum seems to come alive to argue with the dilemmas and fantasies brought to a women's studies classroom...Felman's autobiography of pedagogy is also that of the teacher's own generation. -- Deborah P. Britzman, York University, Toronto
In her exciting book Never a Dull Moment, Felman reveals the deeper value of 'face-to-face' teaching, not simply as a means of getting information across, but as a way of exploring some of the most sensitive gender and racial issues we confront in the contemporary classroom. -- Lillian S. Robinson, author of Sex, Class, and Culture
Jyl Lynn Felman's brilliance as a teacher is unmistakable in this book--a dynamic combination of lyrical writing and provocative ideas. Anyone who has ever experienced the personal transformation that comes from teaching about social justice will recognize the wisdom in Felman's approach to educating the 'whole' student. Anyone who hasn't needs to read this book. -- Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
Felman never fails to excite and shake up her readers. Here she is at the top of her game-witty, insightful, provocative, sexy, and moving. Every classroom would benefit from Felman's approach, and universities would become centers of life culture instead of institutions dedicated to destroying our interest in ideas, if this book became the standard by which tenure was granted. Get every college president you know to read it. -- Tikkun
In this collection of essays, Felman reveals how she helps her students understand the 'big picture' and how she teaches them to transform themselves while discarding the distorted views they may have about others. -- Library Journal
In this book--perhaps better understood as a collection of one-act plays rather than a series of pedagogical essays--she writes about her own experiences as an instructor and a feminist in a classroom that, for her purposes, she treats as little different from live theater. Ms. Felman uses an academic version of improvisation--a traditional tool of the actor--to deal with issues in women's studies. -- Chronicle of Higher Education

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (April 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415926602
• ISBN-13: 978-0415926607
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #598,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Okay, But Not Earth Changing, August 1, 2011

By 

Michael Rex "Brit Fan" (Lebanon, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Never A Dull Moment: Teaching and the Art of Performance (Feminism Takes Center Stage) (Paperback)

Maybe it's just because I've been teaching this way my entire life, but I found Felman's memoir pretty useless. As a memoir, it would be okay, but that is not how it is marketed. Her examples are "hard-won," come at the end endless struggles, massive amounts of self-doubt which, to be perfectly honest, are really second nature to anyone who is even a mediocre teacher. What sounded like a really cool idea ends up being a self glorifying mess of nonsense.

If you are brand new to teaching, _Never a Dull Moment_ might have some insights (if you are willing to dig for them), however, if you are already making a calling out of teaching, past this one by.