Ted Bergman

Dr Bergman has published widely on early-modern Spanish theatre, mainly focusing on humour or criminality. His book The Art of Humour in the Teatro Breve and Comedias of Calderón de la Barca (Támesis, 2003) looks at the mixing of high and low forms of theatre written by one of the period’s best known playwrights.  He is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled The Criminal Baroque: Lawbreaking, Peacekeeping, and Theatricality. His articles on humour in theatre cover such themes metadiscourse and language games, contrasting theatrical interpretations of the voyeurism and the pecado nefando, and self-censorship. His articles on criminality in theatre focus on such topics as theatrical jácaras (17th-century gangster ballads), criminal aliases in fact and fiction, the connection between jácaras and modern narco-corridos, and graphic criminal violence in Celestina (1499).  Dr Bergman’s latest research area is popular medicine, charlatans, and performance in Early Modern Spain, for which he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities Small grant to do archival research during the summer of 2015.

Ted Bergman’s research focuses on four main areas: early-modern Spanish theatre, criminality in entertainment media, humour studies, and the history of medicine. Secondary research areas include Don Quixote, as well as the cultural connections between early-modern Iberia and Scandinavia. He invites students interested in researching these areas to contact him.

Ted Bergman received his BA in Spanish from Wesleyan University and his PhD in Romance Languages from Princeton University.

Dr Bergman currently teaches on several undergraduate modules in Spanish, from first year-language, to Don Quixote, to an honours module on heroes an antiheroes.