Renaissance Literature and Early Modern Studies
Study of English Renaissance/early modern literature and culture draws on the expertise of a dozen graduate faculty members. Their research encompasses a variety of subjects from within the period, including aesthetic forms, contested histories, social and religious structures, performance and rhetorical conventions, gender, material culture, and language. Course offerings reflect such specialties as Shakespeare and early drama (Barret, Bruster, Loehlin, Mallin, Richmond-Garza, Rumrich, Whigham, Wojciehowski); sixteenth- and seventeenth-century verse, including Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, and Donne (Barret, Rumrich, Whigham); Milton (Rumrich); rhetoric and non-literary writing and culture (Rebhorn, Whigham, Woods); early modern sociolinguistics (Blockley); global Renaissance studies (Wojciehowski); Medieval-Renaissance studies (Barret, Scala, Woods); and the English Renaissance in its European context (Rebhorn, Richmond-Garza, Wojciehowski).
Students conducting research in this field benefit from the interdisciplinary interests of the faculty, as well as from the archival holdings of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRC), which features many renaissance books in its celebrated Pforzheimer and Wrenn collections. Shakespeare studies at the University are complemented by the University's Shakespeare at Winedale program, annual performances by the Actors from the London Stage (AFTLS), and by productions in the larger Austin area. Historically, research in this field has also been enriched by connections with other areas and concerns such as Medieval, Eighteenth-century, Poetry and Poetics, and Linguistics.
Faculty
- Barret, J.K.
- Blockley, Mary E.
- Bruster, Douglas
- Loehlin, James N.
- Mallin, Eric S.
- Rebhorn, Wayne A.
- Richmond-Garza, Elizabeth M.
- Rumrich, John
- Scala, Elizabeth
- Whigham, Frank
- Wojciehowski, Hannah Chapelle
- Woods, Marjorie Curry
