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All The Classroom's a Stage: Feminism, Teaching, and the Art of Performance Teachers are really performers, classrooms are stages, and students the captivated audience. Dynamic, animated, and often unpredictable, Jyl Lynn Felman's approach to teaching breaks new ground, creating a rich and intellectual theater of ideas for her students.
In beautifully written prose, Felman invites us to take a seat and watch her one-woman show. This is where the feminist classroom meets live guerilla theater and once the show has begun, learning becomes interactive, intentionally dramatic and fully engaging as it was always meant to be. No one is left behind, bored or disinterested. All the cast, students, teaching assistants, as well as the professor, become intellectually open and vulnerable to the world of ideas.
A dramatic transformation of the traditional classroom,All The Classroom's a Stage challenges the reader to rethink the nature of learning and shows what can happen in the act of teaching. In the process, Felman takes on some of the most important issues on college campuses today, including identity politics, sexual harassment, race relations, eating disorders, tenure, and the value of teaching. Felman suggests the prototype for a new kind of educator-bold, effective, and visionary. This is a performance not to be missed.
Jyl Lynn Felman is Assistant Professor of Women's Studies at Brandeis University. She is a lawyer and performance artist. Her one-woman show, If Only I'd Been Born A Kosher Chicken, has been aired on C-SPAN and she has appeared on NPR and the BBC. Her previous books include, Hot Chicken Wings (1992), which was a Lambda Literary Awards Finalist, and Cravings (1997), a memoir.
Praise for Jyl Lynn Felman: "With her sharp-eyed sensibility.the work of Jyl Lynn Felman is always revealing as she tracks the forbidden edges of being Jewish, female, lesbian at the end of the twentieth century." -Adrienne Rich A must-read for teachers and anyone interested in the transformative powers of education Beautifully crafted essays on the politics of the university Felman is well-known among the Jewish, gay and lesbian, and women's studies' communities.

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 Cahners Business Information.