English Department Faculty
Andrew Sofer
Professor
Andrew Sofer
Ph.D.
Contact
Stokes Hall S453
Telephone: 617-552-1653
Email: sofer@bc.edu
Education
- B.A., Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- M.F.A., Boston University School of Theatre Arts
- Ph.D., University of Michigan
Department
Biography
Andrew Sofer's teaching and research interests include theatre/performance studies; Shakespeare and early modern theatre and drama; modern and contemporary theatre and drama; theatre and philosophy; Beckett studies; prop studies; invisibility studies; and creative writing (poetry). His books include聽The Stage Life of Props;聽a poetry collection, Wave; and聽Dark Matter: Invisibility in Drama, Theater, and Performance. His scholarship has been recognized by the American Society for Theatre Research, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and the Theatre Library Association and has sparked interdisciplinary conferences at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Goethe University Frankfurt. Prof. Sofer's essays have appeared in聽The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre, The Blackwell Companion to Twentieth-Century American Drama, the Norton Critical Edition of The Spanish Tragedy, and many scholarly journals. He has been English Alumni Lecturer at the University of Alabama at Birmingham; McElroy Shakespeare Lecturer at Loyola University, Chicago; and IPTD Distinguished Lecturer at Northwestern University.聽He was a visiting lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University's Center for the Arts in Society (2016) and Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (2017), and a Donald Justice Scholar in Poetry at the Sewanee Writers' Conference (2011). From 2012 to 2022 he taught at the Mellon School of Theater and Performance Research at Harvard.
Prof. Sofer聽holds an MFA in Directing and is interested in performance as an aid to textual interpretation. A widely published poet, he enjoys the confluence of music and poetry. His collaborations with composers Kevin Beavers and Carter Pann have been performed at the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music, the Washington Square Music Festival (NYC), the University of Indianapolis Faculty Artist Series, the University of Michigan, and other venues. He has also worked as a professional actor and voice artist, narrating over forty "talking books" for the Library of Congress.
Publications
Books
- 聽(University of Michigan Press, 2013) 聽
- 聽(Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2010)
- (University of Michigan Press, 2003)
Selected Articles
- 础蹿迟别谤飞辞谤诲.听Theatre Things: Material Theories and Histories, ed. Andrew Lane Friedman and Eero Laine. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Forthcoming.
- "Epilogue: The Prop as a Stage of Art."聽Props/Requisiten: Staging the Object on the 'Stage of Art.'聽Frankfurt: Goethe University.聽 Forthcoming.
- "Thinking Through Phenomena: Theatre Phenomenology in Theatre and Practice,"聽Theatre Journal聽74 (2022).聽
- 鈥淏eyond Sympathy and Ridicule: Re-visiting Frye鈥檚 Comic Catharsis,鈥澛�The Hare: An Online Journal of Untimely Reviews in Early Modern Theater聽5 (2021).聽
- 鈥淓liot and his Problems: Hamlet鈥檚 Correlative Objects.鈥澛�Shakespeare鈥檚 Things: Shakespearean Theatre and the Non-Human World in History, Theory, and Performance, ed. Brett Gamboa and Lawrence Switzky. New York: Routledge, 2020.
- 鈥淎ll鈥檚 I-L-L That Starts 鈥淚鈥檒e鈥�: Mapping Acrostic Space and Ludic Reading in the Margins of the Early Modern Play-Text,鈥澛�Renaissance Drama聽48 (2020).
- 鈥淧rivate language argument I,鈥� 鈥淧rivate language argument II,鈥� 鈥淏eetle Haiku,鈥� 鈥淕host Practice: A Gloss,鈥� in聽Imagined Theatres: Writing For a Theoretical Stage, ed. Daniel Sack. New York: Routledge, 2017 (prose poems).
- "Tragedy and the Common Goat: Deperformative Poetics in Edward Albee's聽The Goat, or聽Who is Sylvia?"聽Modern Drama聽60 (2017): 501-525.
- "Getting on with Things: The Currency of Objects in Theatre and Performance Studies." Theatre Journal 68 (2016): 673-84.
- 鈥淪pectral Readings.鈥� Theatre Journal 64 (2012): 323-36.
- "Take Up the Bodies: Shakespeare's Babies, Body Parts, and Corpses," Theatre Symposium 18 (2010): 135-48.
- 鈥淗ow To Do Things With Demons: Conjuring Performatives in Doctor Faustus,鈥� Theatre Journal 61 (2009): 1-22.
- 鈥淪omething Cloudy, Something Queer: Eugene O鈥橬eill鈥檚 Ah, Wilderness! and Tennessee Williams鈥檚 Period of Adjustment as Problem Comedies,鈥� Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 18 (2004): 37-58.
- 鈥淭he Cheese-Roll Under the Cocktail Cabinet: Pinter鈥檚 Object Lessons,鈥� The Pinter Review Collected Essays 2003 and 2004, ed. Francis Gillen and Steven H. Gale. Tampa: University of Tampa Press, 2004: 29-38.
- 鈥淎bsorbing Interests: Kyd鈥檚 Bloody Handkerchief as Palimpsest,鈥� Comparative Drama 34 (2000): 127-53.
- 鈥淣o Ideas But In Things: Beckett鈥檚 Uncanny Props,鈥� Text & Presentation: Journal of the Comparative Drama Conference 19 (1998): 123-29.
- 鈥淭he Skull on the Renaissance Stage: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Props,鈥� English Literary Renaissance 28 (1998): 47-74.
- 鈥淔elt Absences: The Stage Properties of Othello鈥檚 Handkerchief,鈥� Comparative Drama 31 (1997): 367-93.
- 鈥淪elf-Consuming Artifacts: Power, Performance, and the Body in Tennessee Williams鈥� Suddenly Last Summer,鈥� Modern Drama 38 (1995): 336-47.
Essays in Edited Collections
- 鈥淧roperties,鈥� The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre, ed. Richard Dutton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 009.
- 鈥淔rom Technology to Trope: The Archbishop鈥檚 Ceiling and Arthur Miller鈥檚 Prismatic Drama,鈥� in Arthur Miller鈥檚 America: Theater & Culture in a Time of Change, ed. Enoch Brater (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005): 94-108.
- 鈥淢aria Irene Fornes: Acts of Translation,鈥� in A Companion to Twentieth Century American Drama, ed. David Krasner (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005): 440-55.
Creative Writing, Books
- (Editor's Choice Series Selection, Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2011)
Creative Writing, Journals
- Poems published in Southwest Review, Atlanta Review, North American Review, Margie, Southern Poetry Review, Poetry International, Dogwood, The Formalist, and elsewhere.
Creative Writing, Interviews and Readings
- Boston College Faculty Publication Highlight ()
- : October 25, 2011
Academic Honors
- Honorable Mention, Outstanding Book Award, Association for Theatre in Higher Education, 2014
- Finalist, George Freedley Memorial Award for Outstanding Book on Theatre and Performance, Theatre Library Association, 2014
- Oscar G. Brockett Essay Prize,聽American Society for Theatre Research, 2010
- Honorable Mention, Barnard Hewitt Award for Excellence in Theatre History, American Society for Theatre Research, 2004