My research focuses on early modern literature, particularly the theatrical drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. My first book, The Drama of Complaint: Ethical Provocations in Shakespeare’s Tragedy (Oxford University Press, 2023), examines Shakespeare’s engagement with poetic forms of complaint, and argues that these conventional forms were vehicles for unconventional philosophical thought on the early modern stage. Exploring moral treatises and essays, Reformed theology, sermons, and conduct manuals, as well as drama and poetry, it shows how complaint—at its most basic, an expression of discontent and desire—operates across early modern discourses as a site of thought about human flourishing. The book also argues that by reconfiguring these familiar poetic forms, Shakespeare’s theatrical scenes of complaint model and elicit new forms of thinking about virtuous ways of desiring, acting, and living. The Drama of Complaint was a finalist for the 2024 Shakespeare Association of America First Book Award.
MA, English, Syracuse University (2008)
BA, English, Andrews University (2005)
- Renaissance/ early modern literature
- Shakespeare
- English