Renaissance and Early Modern Literature and Culture
Renaissance and Early Modern Literature and Culture is a particular strength of period-based research in the School. There are six members of staff working in the field:
- Professor Thomas Cain (Emeritus)
- Professor Kate Chedgzoy
- Dr Ruth Connolly
- Dr Katherine Heavey (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow)
- Professor Michael Pincombe
- Professor Jennifer Richards
They share a range of research expertise in the drama, poetry and prose of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Areas of strength include: Shakespeare and his contemporaries, mid-Tudor writing, the Atlantic Renaissance, reading practices and marginalia, rhetoric and dialogue, women’s writing, and textual editing.
Republican writing is a further area of research interest which links colleagues working in the Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Literature. We also contribute to the Early Modern Studies @ Newcastle Research Group.
The School is home to the Tudor Symposium, an international colloquium for teachers and researchers of sixteenth-century literature. In 2005, we hosted the second Biennial Conference of the British Shakespeare Association.
The University Library has excellent resources to support this area. It subscribes to Early English Books Online (EEBO). The Library's Department of Special Collections holds the Bainbrigg Collection (deposited by the Governors of Appleby Grammar School) and the Bradshaw Collection.
Staff working in this area have published several books. Professor Richards is currently Associate Editor of the journal Renaissance Studies.
Postgraduates
We have a very successful group of home and international postgraduate students working on Renaissance Literature and Culture, and we have been particularly successful at securing AHRC-funded scholarships in recent years. Colleagues contribute to the successful MA in English Literature 1500-1900 .
Research Council-funded Projects
AHRC-funded Research Grant: 'An Edition of the Complete Poetry of Robert Herrick'