Professional Appointments

Associate Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania, 2012-present.

Stephen M. Gorn Family Assistant Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania, 2010-2012.

Assistant Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania, 2006-2012.

Assistant Professor of English, San Francisco State University, 2004-2006.

Faculty Fellow, Department of English, UC Irvine, 2002-2004 (a competitive post-doctoral teaching fellowship).

Education

Ph.D. in English with Graduate Emphasis in Feminist Theory, University of California, Irvine, 2002.

Dissertation: Monstrous Eros: A Reconsideration of Seventeenth-Century British Romance.

M.A. in English, University of California, Irvine, 1998.

B.A. in English, University of California, Irvine, 1995.

Books

Erotic Subjects: The Sexuality of Politics in Early Modern English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2011. Reviewed in Renaissance Quarterly 64 (2011); Studies in English Literature 52 (2012); Comparative Drama 46 (2012); Sixteenth-Century Journal 43 (2012); and Clio 41 (2012).

Rethinking Feminism: Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Early Modern Studies. Co-editor with Ania Loomba. (Ashgate, forthcoming).

“Unreformed Desires: Feminism, Queer Theory, and Early Modern Sexualities.” Manuscript in progress.

Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters

“Sex as Sex: Female Lust and Tragic Love.” A Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment: Gender, Sexuality, Race. Ed. Valerie Traub. Oxford University Press, forthcoming in 2013. (In progress).

“‘What Hath Night to Do with Sleep?’: Bestial Sex and Human Temporality in A Mask.” Special issue of Early Modern Culture on “Queer Milton.” Ed. Will Stockton and David Orvis. Forthcoming in 2013. (26 pages in manuscript).

“‘In Myself the Smart I Try’: Female Promiscuity in Astrophil and Stella.” ELH. Forthcoming in 2013. (39 pages in manuscript.)

“The Poetics of Feminine Desire in Shakespeare’s Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint.” The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare’s Poetry. Ed. Jonathan Post. Oxford University Press. Forthcoming in 2013. (31 pages in manuscript.)

“‘Modesty or Comeliness’: The Predicament of Reform Theology in Spenser’s Amoretti and Epithalamion.” Renascence 65 (2012): 5-24.

“‘Use Me But as Your Spaniel’: Feminism, Queer Theory, and Early Modern Sexualities.” PMLA 127 (2012): 493-511.

“‘She Straightness on the Woods Bestows’: Protestant Sexuality and English Empire in Marvell’s ‘Upon Appleton House.’” Atlantic Worlds in the Long Eighteenth Century: Seduction and Sentiment. Ed. Toni Bowers and Tita Chico. Palgrave, 2012. 81-96.

“Bodies that Matter in Richard II.” Richard II: New Critical Essays. Ed. Jeremy Lopez. Routledge, 2012. 95-116.

“Seduction and Service in The Tempest.” Studies in Philology 105 (2008): 50-82.

“The Politics of Masochism in Mary Wroth’s Urania.” ELH 74 (2007): 449-478.

“Fantasies of Friendship in The Faerie Queene, Book IV.” English Literary Renaissance 37 (2007): 250-273.

“Libertinism and Romance in Rochester’s Poetry.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 38 (2005): 441-459. 

“‘The True Vowed Sacrifice of Unfeigned Love’: Eros and Authority in The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.” The Sidney Journal 22 (2004): 90-105.

Other Publications

Review of Stephen Orgel, Spectacular Performances: Essays on Theatre, Imagery, Books and Selves in Early Modern England. Renaissance Studies, forthcoming.

Review of Mario DiGangi, Sexual Types: Embodiment, Agency, and Dramatic Character from Shakespeare to Shirley. Comparative Drama 46 (2012): 247-249.

“Feminisms, Past and Future.” Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies (JEMCS) 12 (2012): 114-121. (Review essay of Kathryn Schwarz, What You Will: Gender, Contract, and Shakespearean Social Space.)

Review of Madhavi Menon, ed., Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Renaissance Quarterly 64 (2011): 1006-1008.

“Thomas Carew.” The Blackwell Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature. 3 vols. Ed. Garrett Sullivan and Alan Stewart. Blackwell, 2012. 1:147-148.

“Inigo Jones.” The Blackwell Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature. 3 vols. Ed. Garrett Sullivan and Alan Stewart. Blackwell, 2012. 2:550-551.

“Mary Wroth.” The Blackwell Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature. 3 vols. Ed. Garrett Sullivan and Alan Stewart. Blackwell, 2012. 3:1076-1081.

Review of Aaron Kitch, Political Economy and the States of Literature in Early Modern England. Spenser Review 41, no. 3 (2010): n.p. (2 pages in print.)

“Writing Gender and Class in Early Modern England.” Huntington Library Quarterly 65 (2002): 533-544. (Review Essay of Lori Humphrey Newcomb, Reading Popular Romance in Early Modern England, and Sidney L. Sondergard, Sharpening Her Pen: Strategies of Rhetorical Violence by Early Modern Women.)

Research and Teaching Fields

Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature; feminist theory, queer theory, and gender studies; critical theory; psychoanalytic theory; classical, medieval, and Continental influences on English culture; histories of religion and national identity; early modern political history and philosophy.

Fellowships, Honors, Awards

University Research Foundation Award, University of Pennsylvania, 2011.

Dean’s Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 2011.

Mellon Foundation Cross-Cultural Contacts Conference and Publication Grant, 2010-2011.

School of Arts and Sciences Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Award for Distinguished Teaching by an Assistant

            Professor, University of Pennsylvania, 2009.

Simon Fellowship for Curricular Innovation, University of Pennsylvania, 2008.

Alice Paul Center for Gender and Women’s Studies Summer Research Fellowship, University of

            Pennsylvania, 2007.

Vice-President’s Fellowship, San Francisco State University, 2006.

Affirmative Action Fellowship and Research Grant, San Francisco State University, 2005.

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship at the Huntington Library, 2003.

Award for Outstanding Upper-Division Instruction, UC Irvine, 2003.

Western Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Helen Koon Memorial Essay Award (First Place), 2002.

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship at the Huntington Library, 2002.

UC Irvine Humanities Center Summer Research Grant, 2002.

Award for Excellence in Teaching and TA Mentoring, UC Irvine, 2002.

Dorothy and Donald Strauss Dissertation Year Fellowship, UC Irvine, 2001-2002.

School of Humanities Summer Dissertation Fellowship, UC Irvine, 2001.

Project Prometheus Award for Teaching and Mentoring, UC Irvine, 2001.

Hester M. Laddey Memorial Dissertation Fellowship, UC Irvine, 2000.

Nora Folkenflik Memorial Teaching Award, UC Irvine, 1999.

UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Research Travel Grant, 1998.

School of Humanities Summer Research Grant, UC Irvine, 1997.

University of California Regents’ Predoctoral Fellowship, 1996-1997.

Invited Lectures

“Sex and/or Sisterhood in Early Modern Studies.” Yale University Medieval-Renaissance Colloquium. New Haven, CT. October 2011.

“‘Master Mistress’: The Poetics of Feminine Desire in Shakespeare’s Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint.” UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Conference on Shakespeare’s Poetry and Poetics. Los Angeles, CA. May 2011.

“Feminism, Queer Theory, and Early Modern Sexualities.” UC Berkeley Renaissance Colloquium. Berkeley, CA. March 2011.

“‘Too Long for a Play’: The Limits of Comedy in Love’s Labour’s Lost.” Pre-Performance Lecture for London Globe Production of Love’s Labour’s Lost. Philadelphia, PA. October 2009.

“Erotic Subjects in English History.” Visiting Hurst Professor Seminar. Washington University St. Louis. St. Louis, MO. September 2009.

“Consent without Agency in Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece.” Visiting Hurst Professor Lecture. Washington University St. Louis. St. Louis, MO. September 2009.

“The King’s Two Wives: Seduction and Betrayal in the English Masque.” Temple University PreModern Studies Colloquium. Philadelphia, PA. September 2009.

“‘Accessory Yieldings’: Coercion and Collusion in The Rape of Lucrece.” Princeton University Early Modern Studies Seminar. Princeton, NJ. April 2009.

“‘Sacred Places’: Passion, Property, and Politics in Marvell’s Pastoral Lyrics.” Henry E. Huntington Library Early Modern Studies Institute Series on “Literature Beyond Words.” San Marino, CA. March 2009.

“Publishing in Early Modern Studies.” Seminar for the University of Southern California English Ph.D. Program. Los Angeles, CA. February 2009.

“Love and Liberty in the Caroline Masque.” Columbia University Early Modern Studies Seminar.  New York, NY. October 2007.

“The Politics of Romance in Renaissance England.” Henry E. Huntington Library’s Scholarly Sustenance Series. San Marino, CA. August 2003.

Selected Conference Papers

“A Woman Colored Ill”: Promiscuity and (White) Privilege in Shakespeare’s Sonnets.” Shakespeare Association of America Annual Meeting. Boston, MA. April 2012.

“‘Discourse of Venus’: Feminism and Female Eroticism in Mary Wroth’s Pamphilia to Amphilanthus.” Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference. Washington, D.C. March 2012.

“Spenser, Donne, and the ‘Rise’ of Companionate Marriage.” Modern Language Association Annual Conference. Seattle, WA. January 2012.

“‘O Happy Vantage of a Kneeling Knee’: Affect and Sovereignty in Richard II.” Shakespeare Association of America Annual Meeting. Bellevue, WA. April 2011.

“Sexual Consent and Political Responsibility in The Rape of Lucrece.” Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference. Venice, Italy. April 2010.

“Tongue-Tied: Double-Entendre and the Construction of Civility in The Winter’s Tale.” Modern Language Association Annual Conference. Philadelphia, PA. December 2009.

“Desiring the Past: Feminist and/or Queer Historiographies?” University of Pennsylvania Women’s Studies Conference. Philadelphia, PA. October 2009.

“‘Union in Partition’: Female Bonds in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Shakespeare Association of America Annual Meeting. Washington, D.C. April 2009.

“Voices from the Convent: Protestant History in Upon Appleton House.” Barnard College Medieval and Renaissance Conference. New York, NY. December 2008.

“‘My Self / Before Me’: The Gender of Republicanism in Paradise Lost.” North American Conference for British Studies. Cincinnati, OH. October 2008.

“‘Virgin Buildings’: Spenserian Chastity and Protestant Reform in Marvell’s Interregnum Poetry.” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference. St. Louis, MO. October 2008.

“Desire and Resistance in Spenser’s Book of Justice.” Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference. Chicago, IL. April 2008.

“Chivalry, Seduction, and Huguenot Thought in The Faerie Queene.” Modern Language Association Annual Conference. Chicago, IL. December 2007.

“The Passion to be Reckoned On in the Political Worlds of Margaret Cavendish.” Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference. Miami, FL. March 2007.

“Passion and Law in Margaret Cavendish’s Romances.” University of Pennsylvania Med-Ren Group. Philadelphia, PA. December 2006.

“Female Anger and Political Resistance in Philip Sidney’s Arcadia and Mary Wroth’s Urania.” Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference. San Francisco, CA. March 2006.

“Sondrie Willes: Reading Consent in The Faerie Queene, Book IV.” Modern Language Association Annual Conference. Washington, D.C. December 2005.

“‘Who Can Loue the Worker of Her Smart?’: The Politics of Chastity in The Faerie Queene.”  International Congress on Medieval Studies. Kalamazoo, MI. May 2005.

“Authority and Eros in The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.” Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference. Cambridge, England. April 2005.

“The Reproduction of Chastity in Measure for Measure and Pericles.” California State University Annual Shakespeare Symposium. Long Beach, CA. November 2003.

“Politic Bodies: Rape in Titus Andronicus.” Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies Annual Conference. Newport Beach, CA. October 2003.

“The End of Epic: Dido in The Tempest.” Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference.  Scottsdale, AZ. April 2002.

“‘Let Me, By Stealth, this Female Plague O’recome’: Nature and Authority in Dryden’s Aeneid.”  American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference. Colorado Springs, CO. April 2002.

“Classical Mythology, Christian Allegory, and English History in the Masques of Jonson and Milton.”  University of California Conference on Literature and History. Irvine, CA. March 2002. 

“‘Innocent and Pleas’d’: Female Pleasure and Masculine Identity in Rochester’s Poetry.” Western Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference. Orange, CA. February 2002. (Winner of the Helen Koon Award for an Essay by a Graduate Student or Non-Tenured Faculty Member.)

“Science and Truth in Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World.” Claremont Graduate University Early Modern Studies Symposium on “The New Science: Emerging Viewpoints in the Early Modern Era.” Claremont, CA. March 2001.

“The Authority of Experience: Negotiating Theory and Practice in the Teaching Philosophy.” Annual Conference on College Composition and Communication. Denver, CO. March 2001.

“An Imperfect Pastoral: Rochester’s Âmorality.” Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies Annual Conference.  New Orleans, LA. November 2000.

“Political Passion in Dryden’s Marriage A-la-Mode.” West Virginia Shakespeare and Renaissance Studies Annual Conference. Elkins, WV. April 1999.

Conferences Organized

Co-organizer with Ari Friedlander and Will Stockton of “Desiring History and Historicizing Desire.” Huntington Library, September 19-22, 2014. (Planning in progress.)

Co-organizer with Ania Loomba of “Historicizing Sex: A State of the Field Conference in Early Modern Gender and Sexuality Studies.” University of Pennsylvania, March 18, 2011. http://www.english.upenn.edu/Conferences/HistoricizingSex. (Speakers: Dympna Callaghan, Richard Halpern, Coppélia Kahn, Jeff Masten, Patricia Parker, Richard Rambuss)

Conference Sessions: Organizer and/or Respondent

Chair and Co-organizer for “Sexuality and Form in English Renaissance Literature” session at Modern Language Association Annual Convention. Boston, MA. January 2013.

Chair and Organizer for “Spenser’s Afterlives” session at Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference. Washington, D.C. March 2012.

Roundtable Discussant for “New Directions in Feminism and Queer Theory” Symposium. Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program and Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality, and Women. University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA. September 2011.

Respondent to Karen Raber, “The Plays of Margaret Cavendish: Freedom, Education, and Women.” Alice Paul Center Gender and Sexuality Studies Seminar. University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA. September 2011.

Respondent for the “Experimental Historiography” panel at Future/No Future: An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference on the History of Gender and Sexuality Studies. University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA. September 2010.

Organizer and respondent for “Petrarch in England” panel at Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference. Venice, Italy. April 2010.

Respondent for Women’s Studies seminar paper by Gary Ferguson, “(Same-Sex) Marriage and the Making of Europe: Renaissance Rome Revisited.” Alice Paul Center, University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA. March 2010.

Invited participant in the Dartmouth Northeast Early Modern Studies Colloquium. Hanover, NH. 2009.

Chair and organizer for “Desiring the Past: Feminist Theory and Early Modern Culture” panel at the Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies Annual Meeting. Philadelphia, PA. November 2008.

Respondent for Women’s Studies seminar paper by David Kazanjian, “(Re)flexion: Genocide in Ruins.” Alice Paul Center, University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, PA. September 2008.

Chair and organizer for “Romance on the Early Modern Stage” Seminar at Shakespeare Association of America Annual Meeting. Dallas, TX. March 2008.

Chair and organizer for the “Renaissance Romance: Canon and Contexts” session at Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference. San Francisco, CA. March 2006.

Organizer for the “Gendering Humanism: Public and Private Selves in English Renaissance Literature” session at Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference. San Francisco, CA. March 2006.

Chair and organizer for the “Spectacular Politics: Representing Violence in Early Modern Tragedy” session at the Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies Annual Conference. Newport Beach, CA.  October 2003.

Chair and organizer for the “The Erotics of Renaissance Tragicomedy” session at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference. Toronto, Canada. March 2003.

Co-chair and organizer for the “Reading Male Sexuality in the Literature of the Long Eighteenth Century” session of the Western Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Annual Conference. Orange, CA. February 2002.

Chair and organizer of the “Ovid 2000: Feminism, Film, and the Pygmalion Myth” session at the Pacific Southwest Women’s Studies Association Annual Conference. San Diego, CA. April 2001.

Co-chair and organizer for the “Romance and the Historicity of Sexual Pleasure in Restoration Literature” session at the Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies Annual Conference. New Orleans, LA. November 2000.

Courses Taught

University of Pennsylvania, Assistant Professor. 2006-present.

        Graduate

        Early Modern Sexualities (cross-listed with Women’s Studies)

        Feminist Theory and Early Modern Texts (cross-listed with Women’s Studies/ComparativeLiterature)

        Proseminar: Introduction to Critical Theory   

        Milton (Independent Study)

        Pedagogy

        Undergraduate

        English Literature from Chaucer to Milton

        Milton: Major Poetry and Prose

        Shakespeare

        Feminist Theory (cross-listed with Women’s Studies)

        Law, Religion, and Literature in Renaissance England

        Gender, Sexuality and Sovereignty in Romance (cross-listed with Women’s Studies/ComparativeLiterature)

        Erotic Poetry in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England 

        Medieval and Renaissance Romance (cross-listed with Comparative Literature)

        The Politics of Love and Religion in Renaissance England

        Honors Thesis Writing Seminar

        Women and Gender in Early Modern Literature (Independent Study)

San Francisco State University, Assistant Professor. 2004-2006.

        Graduate

        Sexuality and Politics in Sixteenth-Century English Poetry

        Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry

        Medieval and Renaissance Drama

        Undergraduate

        Shakespeare: Representative Plays

        Race and Gender in the English Renaissance

        The Age of Humanism

        Introduction to Literary Criticism and Theory

        Shakespeare and Colonialism: The Tempest as Case Study

University of California, Irvine, Faculty Fellow. 2002-2004.

        Undergraduate

        Race and Gender in the English Renaissance

        Religion, Magic, and Sovereignty in Early Modern England   

        Literary Politics: The Tempest and Postcolonial Thought

        The Politics of Love in Renaissance England

        Early Modern Pastoral Romance 

        Classical and Renaissance Tragedy

        Shakespeare

        Greek and Roman Drama in the Renaissance (Independent Study)

Service

Profession

        International Spenser Society Representative to the Council of the Renaissance Society of America.

                2011-2014.

        International Spenser Society Executive Board. 2008-present.

        Judge for 2009 Isabella MacCaffrey Award for Best Book on Spenser. 2009.

        Manuscript Reviews for:

                Fordham University Press

                University of Minnesota Press

                Eighteenth-Century Fiction

                Eighteenth-Century Studies

                The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation            

                Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies

                Modern Philology

                PMLA            

                Renaissance and Reformation

                The Sidney Journal

                Spenser Studies 

University of Pennsylvania

        History of Art Search Committee for Position in Southern Renaissance Art. 2011-2012.

        Executive Committee of the Women’s Studies Program and the Alice Paul Center for the Study

                of Gender and Sexuality. 2008-present.

        Faculty Sponsor for the Gender and Sexuality Studies Group. 2007, 2010-2012.

        English Graduate Executive Committee. 2007-2008, 2010-2011.

        Judge for Leboy-Davies Graduate Fellowship in Women’s Studies, 2011.

        Judge for Phyllis Rackin Fellowship for Feminist Study in the Humanities, 2011.

        Lecture for Graduate Student Collation. 2010.

        Director of the Undergraduate Honors Program. 2007-2008.

        English Undergraduate Executive Committee. 2006-2007, 2008-2009.

        Organizer of the Annual Phyllis Rackin Lecture on Early Modern Gender Studies. 2007-present.

                (Speakers: Lena Orlin, 2007; Kim Hall, 2008; Julie Crawford, 2009; Natasha Korda, 2010; Will    

                Fisher, 2011; Jean Howard, 2012.)

        Judge for the Phillip E. Goldfein Prize for Best Undergraduate Essay on Shakespeare. 2007, 2009.

        Judge for the Henry Reed Prize for Best Undergraduate Essay on Renaissance Literature. 2007, 2009.

        Undergraduate Curriculum Committee for the College of Arts and Sciences. 2006-2009.

        Penn Previews Forum for Undergraduates on Mentorship and Research at Penn. 2009.

        Graduate Student Workshops on Pedagogy at Non-Reseach Institutions, Grading Undergraduate

                Essays, and Teaching Feminist Theory. 2007- 2009.

        Judge for the Diane Hunter Prize for Best Dissertation for a Ph.D. in English. 2007.

San Francisco State University

        Graduate Student Workshops on Conferences, Publication, and Job Searches. 2004, 2005.

        Advisor for the English Literature Major. 2005-2006.

        English Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. 2004-2006.

University of California, Irvine

        Coordinator for Group for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies. 1999-2004. 

        University of California Shakespeare Forum. 1998-1999

        Organizer and Instructor for Humanities Out There (HOT), an Interdisciplinary Community Outreach

                Program. 1998-2002.

        Teaching Assistant Consultant for the Department of English and Comparative Literature. 2001-2002.