Katherine Walker, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of English, Office 235
University of Nevada Las Vegas
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Katherine-Walker.com
(940) 368-6098
PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
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2028 The Oxford Handbook to Christopher Marlowe. Co-editor with Kirk Melnikoff and Sarah Dustagheer. Oxford University Press. Forthcoming.
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2025 Instinct, Knowledge and the Occult Sciences in Early Modern English Drama. Under contract with Edinburgh University Press.
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2022 Prophetic Futures, Palgrave Macmillan. Co-editor with Joseph Bowling.
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2021 Shakespeare and Science: A Dictionary, New York and London: Bloomsbury's Arden Shakespeare Series.
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PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES
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2023 “Horatio in Pieces: Or, How to Deal with Ghosts,” Shakespeare (2023): 1-21.
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2023 "State of the Field: Early Modern Magic," Literature Compass, (January 2023)
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2022 “Reading the Early Modern Witch as Epistemic Spectacle,” Cahiers de Recherches Médiévales et Humanistes, Forthcoming.
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2022 “‘Palpable to Thinking’: Othello and Gross Conceits,” English Literary Renaissance, (Spring 2022).
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2021 “Demonic Temporality in Doctor Faustus,” Journal of Marlowe Studies, 1.2 (December 2021): 1-24.
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2020 “Clowns and Demonological Learning in Doctor Faustus,” English Literary History 87.2 (2020): 405-431.
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2018 “Shakespeare and the Magic of Mummy: Consumed/Consuming Bodies in Julius Caesar,” Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural 7.2 (2018): 215-238.
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2017 “‘Daring to Pry into the Privy Chamber of Heaven’: Early Modern Mock-Almanacs and the Virtues of Ignorance,” Studies in Philology, Winter 2017.
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2015 “Early Modern Almanacs and The Witch of Edmonton,” Early Modern Literary Studies, 18.1&2 (2015): 1-25.
2014 “Spectatorship and Vision in The York Corpus Christi Plays,” Comitatus 45 (2014): 169-189.
2013 “‘Sometimes an Actor Himselfe’: Robert Burton and Therapeutic Theatricality,” Prose Studies 35.3 (2013): 223-238.
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BOOK CHAPTERS
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2024 “Prickings and Experiential Knowledge in Macbeth.” In Experience/Experiment in Early Modern England. Edited by James Kearney and Pavneet Singh. Edinburgh University Press. Forthcoming.
2024 “Canine Apparitions: The Black Dog of Newgate.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Ghosts. Palgrave Macmillan. Forthcoming.
2024 “Astral Cures and Cares in Jacobean Drama.” In Networks of Care in Early Modern Literature. Edited by Daryll Chalk and Rebecca Totaro. Edinburgh University Press. Forthcoming.
2024 “Under the Sway of the Moon: Almanacs and Blood-letting in Jacobean Tragedy.” In Hematopoetics. Edited by Ariane Balizet. Palgrave Macmillan. Forthcoming.
2023 “Making First Generation Experiences Visible in the Shakespeare Classroom.” In Inclusive Shakespeares. Edited by Sonya Freeman Loftis, Mardy Philippian, and Justin Shaw. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023: 159-174.
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2022 “Instinct and the Body of the Cook.” In In the Kitchen. Edited by Hillary Nunn and Madeline Bassett. Amsterdam University Press. Forthcoming. ​
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EDITED JOURNAL ISSUES
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2022 Co-editor with Mary Floyd-Wilson, “New Directions in Medicine and Embodiment on the Shakespearean Stage,” Humanities. Forthcoming.
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2019 Co-editor with Joseph Bowling, “Prophetic Futures,” postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies. Spring 2019.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES
2024 “Astrology.” Routledge Encyclopedia of Renaissance Knowledge. Forthcoming. ​
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PUBLIC WRITING
2024 Audible Original Series, “The History and Enduring Popularity of Astrology.” Audible Originals. Link: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-History-and-Enduring-Popularity-of-Astrology-Audiobook/B0CYNDY889?source_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp
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SELECTED REVIEWS
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2025 Battell, Sophie E. On the Threshold: Hospitality in Shakespeare’s Drama (Edinburgh University Press, 2023). Renaissance Quarterly. Forthcoming
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2022 Swann, Elizabeth. Taste and Knowledge in Early Modern England. (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Renaissance Quarterly (Fall 2021).
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2021 Knapp, James A. Immateriality and Early Modern English Literature: Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert (Edinburgh University Press, 2020). Reformation (Spring 2021).
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2017 Marchitello, Howard and Evelyn Tribble (eds.). The Palgrave Handbook of Early Modern Literature and Science. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). The Journal of the Northern Renaissance (Summer 2017).
2016 Pedersen, Tara E. Mermaids and the Production of Knowledge in Early Modern England (Ashgate, 2015). Comparative Drama (Fall 2016).
2016 Preston, Claire. The Poetics of Scientific Investigation in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford, 2015). The British Society for Literature and Science (Summer 2016).
2015 Jennifer Munro, Edward Geisweidt, and Lynne Bruckner, eds. Ecological Approaches to Early Modern English Texts: A Field Guide to Reading and Teaching (Ashgate, 2015). The British Society for Literature and Science (Fall 2015).
2015 Daniel Jütte, The Age of Secrecy: Jews, Christians, and the Economy of Secrets (Yale University Press, 2015). Sixteenth Century Journal (Fall 2015).
2015 Leah Knight, Reading Green in Early Modern England (Ashgate, 2014). The British Society for Literature and Science (Summer 2015).
2014 Erika T. Lin, Shakespeare and the Materiality of Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Journal of the Northern Renaissance. (Spring 2014).
2011 Fred Tromly, Fathers and Sons in Shakespeare: The Debt Never Promised (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010). Sixteenth Century Journal. (Spring 2011).
EDUCATION
Ph.D. English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, April 2018
Dissertation Title “Reading the Natural and Preternatural Worlds in Early Modern Drama"
M.A. English Literature, Texas Christian University, May 2011
B.A. English Literature and B.A. Philosophy, University of North Texas, August 2009
HONORS AND FELLOWSHIPS
AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS, NATIONAL
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2024 Folger Shakespeare Library, Research Fellowship, December, 2024.
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2020 Folger Shakespeare Library, Research Fellowship, June-July 2021.
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2018 Huntington Library, Short-Term Fellowship, May-June 2019.
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2018 Folger Faculty Seminar, “Digging the Past,” led by Frances Dolan. Folger Shakespeare Library.
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2017 Emerging Scholar Award, American Shakespeare Center, Blackfriars Conference. Keynote Invitation for 2019.
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2017 Newberry Library, American Society for Environmental History Fellow, September-October 2017.
2017 MARCO Manuscript Workshop, “Envisioning Knowledge,” University of Tennessee at Knoxville, February
2017.
2016 Mellon School of Theater and Performance Research, Harvard University, Summer 2016.
2014-15 Folger Shakespeare Library Seminar Participant, “Researching the Archive,” taught by Dr. Jean Howard and Dr. Pamela Smith.
2012 Folger Shakespeare Library Seminar Participant, “Mastering Research Methods,” taught by Dr. Natasha Korda.
2006-09 Ronald E. McNair Scholar.
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AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS, UNLV
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2022 College of Liberal Arts Summer Research Award, Dean's Office.
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AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS, UNC & TCU
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2017-18 Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Graduate School, UNC
2017 Frankel Dissertation Fellowship, Department of English, UNC, rec’d 2017 & 2015
2016 Dorothy Ford Wiley Dissertation Seminar Fellowship, Medieval and Early Modern Studies, UNC
2016 Jerry Leath Mills Travel Fellowship, Department of English, UNC, rec’d 2016 & 2012
2016 Future Faculty Fellowship, Center for Faculty Excellence, UNC
2015 Howell-Voitle Dissertation Award, Department of English, UNC
2015 John R. Bittner Dissertation Award, Department of English, UNC
2014 UNC-King’s College London Summer Research Fellowship, Graduate School, UNC
2011-12 Medieval and Early Modern Studies Graduate Recruitment Award, UNC
2010 Texas Christian University Graduate Student Senate Research Grant
TRAVEL GRANTS, NATIONAL​
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2020 Shakespeare Association of America Travel Grant
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2019 Shakespeare Association of America Travel Grant
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2017 Sarah Malone Medieval and Renaissance Studies Travel Grant
2017 Shakespeare Association of America Travel Grant
2017 Modern Language Society Travel Grant
2016 History of Science Society Travel Grant
2016 Society for the Study of Early Modern Women Travel Grant, 2016
2010 South Central Renaissance Conference Competitive Graduate Student Research Grant
CAMPUS TALKS
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2016 "First-Generation, Low-Income College Students and Graduate Admissions in the Humanities," University of North Carolina Honors College, Chapel Hill, March 2016
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UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA LAS VEGAS, 2020 - PRESENT
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2025 Spring Graduate Seminar: Shakespeare and His Contemporaries
2024 Fall Shakespeare’s Tragedies and Romances
2024 Fall British Literature Survey
2024 Summer
2024 Spring On Leave
2023 Fall Shakespeare’s Tragedies and Romances
2023 Fall British Literature Survey
2023 Summer Introduction to Shakespeare
2023 Summer Shakespeare’s Comedies and Histories
2023 Spring Independent Study: Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy
2023 Spring Independent Study: Shakespeare and Film
2023 Spring Shakespeare’s Comedies and Histories
2023 Spring Gender in Renaissance Literature
2022 Fall Graduate Seminar: Bibliography and Methods
2022 Fall COLA 100: Tricks, Scams, Cheats
2022 Spring Renaissance True Crime
2022 Spring Literature and Medicine
2021 Fall Graduate Seminar: Renaissance Magic
2021 Fall Shakespeare’s Tragedies
2021 Fall Independent Study: Cosmic Horror
2021 Spring British Literature Survey
2020 Fall Shakespeare's Comedies & Histories
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MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE, VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, 2019-2020
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Introduction to Literature (Spring 2020)
Renaissance Bodies, Sex, and Gender (Spring 2020)
Shakespeare (Spring 2020)
Magic and Science in the Renaissance (Fall 2019)
Perception and Deception and Medieval and Early Modern Literature (Fall 2019)
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POSTDOCTORAL TEACHING FELLOW, 2018-2019
Shakespeare (2019, 2 sections)
British Literature Survey: Medieval to 18th Century (2018)
Rhetoric and Composition (2018, 2 sections)
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TEACHING FELLOW, UNC, 2011-2018
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Introduction to Poetry (2016, 1 section)
Shakespeare (2014, led 2 discussion sections)
Writing in the Health Sciences (2013-16, 3 sections)
Rhetoric and Composition, research-exposure track (2012-17, 5 sections)
TEACHING ASSISTANT, TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY, 2009-2011
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Introduction to Shakespeare
British Literature from 1800
PEDAGOGICAL EXPERIENCE
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2012-14 Graduate Assistant, Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Program, UNC
2010-11 GRE Tutor, University of North Texas
2009-11 Graduate Writing Assistant, Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Program, UNT
2008-09 Writing Lab Tutor, University of North Texas
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2025 "Usable Temporalities: Time and Writing in Early Modern Almanacs and Calendars," University of Fribourg, Switzerland, May 2025
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2024 "Swindlers of the Supernatural in Ben Jonson's Plays," UNC Colloquium on Premodern Literature and Culture, Chapel Hill, NC, October 2024
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2024 "Renaissance Magic and the Art of Fraud," UNLV Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, April 2024
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2021 "Marlowe and Demons," The Rasmussen Hines Collection Library, October 2021
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2019 “Drama, Demons and Knowledge,” Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, October 2019
2019 “Learning from Clowns and Demons in Doctor Faustus,” Huntington Library, June 2019
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2018 "Charting Temporality at the Newberry: Early Modern Texts on Time." Newberry Library, June 2018
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2016 “Researching the Recipe: Early Modern Cookery and Science,” Early Modern Recipe Online Collective, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, April 2016
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2024 “Editing The Oxford Handbook to Christopher Marlowe,” Invited Panel at the Marlowe Society of America Conference, Deptford, UK, July 2024.
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2024 “Fraudulent Fortune-Tellers,” Part of Invited Panel at the Shakespeare Association of America, Portland, April 2024.
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2023 Seminar Co-Leader, "Cunning" Shakespeare Association of America, Minneapolis, MN, April 2023
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2023 Chair, “Early Modern Scams, Tricks, Cheats,” Modern Language Association, San Francisco, January 2023.
2023 “Scamming in the Stars: Fortune-Telling Manuals and Tricks,” Modern Language Association, San Francisco, January 2023.
2022 “Early Modern Fortune-Telling,” Utah Shakespeare Festival Wooden O Conference, Cedar City, UT, August 2022.
2022 “Emilia’s Trauma,” South Central California Conference, Panelist and Chair, Huntington Library, March 2022.
2021 “Prognostication in A Warning for Fair Women,” Sixteenth Century Society Conference, San Diego, October 2021.
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2021 Organizer, “Shakespeare Studies,” PAMLA, Las Vegas, NV.
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2021 “Angels and Science,” Shakespeare Association of America, Online Seminar due to COVID.
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2020 “Instinct, Experiment, and Prickings in Macbeth,” Shakespeare Association of America, Online Seminar due to COVID.
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2020 “Instinctive Foretellings: The Future and the Body in Early Modern Literature,” Renaissance Society of America, Philadelphia, April 2020.
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2020 Chair, “Early Modern Revenge,” Renaissance Society of America, Philadelphia, April 2020.
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2019 “‘Palpable to Thinking’: Othello and ‘Gross’ Conceits,” Shakespeare Association of America, Washington, D.C.
2019 “Preternatural Spaces and Gulling in Middleton’s The Puritan,” Renaissance Society of America, Toronto
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2018 Women's Knowledge Labor on the Early Modern Stage," Attending to Early Modern Women Conference, Milwaukee, WI
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2018 "Wizards Know Their Times," Shakespeare Association of America, Los Angeles, CA, April 2018
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2017 “The Devil’s Science in Doctor Faustus,” Blackfriars Conference, Staunton, VA, October 2017
2017 “Pericles and Uncanny Knowledge,” Shakespeare Association of America, Atlanta, GA, March 2017
2017 “Receipt Books and Domestic Drama: Experience and Diagnosis in the Early Modern Household,” Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, IL, March, 2017
2017 Panel Organizer and Chair, “Early Modern Prophetic Traditions,” Modern Language Association, Philadelphia, PA, January, 2017
2017 “Mock-Almanacs and the Virtues of Ignorance,” Modern Language Association, Philadelphia, PA, January, 2017
2016 Panel Organizer, “Vernacular Knowledge and Learned Tradition in Early Modern England: Movement, Practice, Reception,” History of Science Society Conference, Atlanta, GA, November, 2016
2016 “Popular Science and Occult Environments: A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Renaissance Society of America, Boston, MA, April, 2016
2016 “Contagious Cityscapes: Criminal Topographies in Dekker and Jonson,” Performance and Materiality in Medieval and Early Modern Culture Conference, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, March 2016
2016 “Magical Trinkets and Texts as Objects of Knowledge,” Shakespeare Association of America, New Orleans, LA, March, 2016
2015 Organizer, “Early Modern Science and Literature,” South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Raleigh, NC, November 2015
2015 “‘Trifled Former Knowings’: Ecological Knowledge in Macbeth and Julius Caesar,” Shakespeare Association of America, Vancouver, BC, April 2015
2014 “From Workshop to Wonders: Artisans in the Preternatural Environment,” South Atlantic Modern Language Association, Atlanta, GA, November 2014
2014 “Consumptive Incantations: Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus and Mastery of Knowledge.” North Carolina Medieval and Early Modern Colloquium at Duke University, Durham, NC, February 2014
2013 “Early Modern Almanacs and Drama,” King’s College London Graduate Student Conference: Shakespeare, Memory, and Culture, London, UK, May 2013
2012 “Becoming Nothing: Hamlet and the Quintessence of Material Experience,” Graduate Student Conference at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: Shakespeare and the Natural World, Chapel Hill, NC, March 2012
2010 “‘Rue the Tears I Shed’: Titus’s Weeping Body,” South Central Renaissance Conference, Corpus Christi, TX, March 2010
2009 “The Reign of Night and the Moon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies National Conference, Dallas, TX, October 2009
UNLV Departmental and University Service
2025 COLA University Forum Lecture Series Committee Member
2024-25 COLA Financial Aid Committee
2022-24 Great Works Committee
2023-24 Chair, Search Committee, 18th Century Literature
2022-23 Search Committee Member, Global Anglophone Literature
2022-23 Undergraduate Studies Committee
2021-present Graduate Studies Committee
Media Outreach
2022 “People Are Stealing Halloween Decorations,” Today.com,
2022 “Exorcisms: The Centuries-Long History of Expelling Evil,” History.com
2023 “Why Do Witches Wear Pointy Hats?: The History Behind the Costume,” History.com
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PROFESSIONAL SERVICE​
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2020 Renaissance Society of America Professional Development Group Leader
2017 Early Modern Recipe Online Collective, Folger Shakespeare Library
2012 Founding Editor, Ethos: A Digital Review of Arts, Humanities, and Public Ethics
(ethosreview.org), edited 2012-2015
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FORMER UNIVERSITY SERVICE
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2019 First-Generation Mentor, Mount Holyoke College
2015 Vice-President of External Affairs, Graduate and Professional Student Federation, UNC
2015 Graduate Student Representative, Faculty Council, UNC
2014 Organizer, “Making Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Culture” Graduate Conference, UNC, Spring
2014
2014 Colloquium Coordinator, English Graduate Association, UNC
2013 President, English Graduate Association, UNC
2012 Treasurer, English Graduate Association, UNC
2012 Organizer, “Shakespeare and the Natural World” Graduate Conference, UNC, Spring 2012.
CURRENT MONOGRAPHS
The Grift of Renaissance Magic (draft stage).
INVITED TALKS
CONFERENCES
TEACHING
MANUSCRIPT REVIEWER
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Literature, Interpretation, Theory; Preternature; Explorations in Renaissance Culture; Eighteenth-Century Life, The Journal of Marlowe Studies
THESIS AND DISSERTATION DIRECTING
Graduate Scholars Mentored
2024-25 Chair, Evelyn Alergria, MA
2024-25 Member, Julianna Jovillar, MA
2024-present Chair, Danielle Menge, PhD
2023-24 Member, Madison Browne, MA
2023-24 Member, Nicole Minton, MA
2023-24 Chair, Amie Greene, MA
2022-present Chair, Miranda Hannasch, PhD
2022-present Chair, Matthew Dentice, PhD
2022-23 Chair, Falynn Brickler, MA
2022-23 Chair, Ramon Oviedo, MA
2021-22 Chair, Shelby Smith, MA
2021-22 Member, Taylore Fox, MA
2021-22 Member, Kevin Boyle, MA
2020 Chair, Erin Turner, MA
Undergraduate Scholars
2023-present Stella Mowat, McNair Scholar Mentor
2020-21 Isabelle Guitarri, Honors Thesis Co-Chair
LANGUAGES
Latin (excellent reading knowledge)
Old English (reading knowledge)
French (reading knowledge)
Spanish (reading knowledge)
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
American Society for Environmental History
History of Science Society
Marlowe Society of America
Modern Language Association
Renaissance Society of America
Shakespeare Association of America
Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts
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