Benjamin Bruch - Curriculum Vitae
Dr. Benjamin Bruch
1951 Delta Avenue
West Branch, IA 52358
USA
bruch@post.harvard.edu
b.bruch@uni-bonn.de
Curriculum Vitae
Download as PDF: European/A4 format • North American/Letter format
Personal
Date of Birth: 28 February 1973
Birthplace: Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA
Citizenship: United States of America
Education
Ph.D. in Celtic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University, June 2005.
Preparation for the doctoral degree included work with medieval manuscripts in Cornish,
Latin, and English as well as research on the history of Celtic, Latin, French, and English metrics and versification,
mystery and miracle plays, and the historical phonology of Welsh, Cornish, and English.
Dissertation: Cornish Verse Forms and the Evolution of Cornish Prosody, c. 1350-1611.
Director: Professor Patrick K. Ford.
Abstract:My doctoral thesis is an analysis of the system of versification employed
by writers of Cornish verse in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, its origins,
and its evolution. Since no contemporary descriptions of this system survive, I have reconstructed the
‘rules’ of Middle Cornish prosody based on the evidence of the six surviving texts from this
period, which together comprise roughly 21,000 lines of verse, most of it religious drama. Most previous
work on this topic has focused on individual texts, and has sought parallels (if at all) only among other
Celtic literary traditions. This study is the first to examine the question of whether all of the known
medieval and early modern Cornish verse texts are products of a single system of versification,
and to explore the links between Middle Cornish verse and the stanza forms used in
contemporary Middle English, French, and Latin literature.
A.M. in Celtic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University, June 2002.
Coursework for the master’s degree included seminars on medieval and modern Celtic languages and
literatures, historical linguistics, and Indo-European studies.
A.B. in English and American Literature and Language, cum laude, Harvard University, June 1997.
Coursework for the bachelor’s degree included seminars, tutorials, and lectures on
the history and structure of the English language, phonology, syntax, comparative literature, Shakespeare,
Arthurian literature, twentieth-century theatre, French literature, literary criticism (including feminist/queer theory, semiotics,
deconstruction, and cultural studies), codicology, and palaeography.