About Grace Tiffany

Grace Tiffany is an American writer and Shakespeare scholar. She's edited Shakespeare's The Tempest and written articles and nonfiction books about Renaissance literature, as well as seven novels, including Will (Berkley 2004), My Father Had a Daughter (Berkley 2003), Ariel (HarperCollins 2005), The Turquoise Ring (Berkley 2005), Paint (Bagwyn Books 2013), Gunpowder Percy (Bagwyn, 2016), and The Owl Was a Baker's Daughter (forthcoming from Harper in 2025). Her first novel, My Father Had a Daughter, appeared on the Booksense 76 independent bookstores’ best-books list of 2003. Her fourth, Ariel, was listed as a best book by the National Library Assocation in 2006. Her third novel, The Turquoise Ring, is a retelling of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice from the perspective of the five women in the play. The book has been translated into Hebrew, Russian, and Hungarian (Magyar). Renowned Columbia University Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro has called The Turquoise Ring one of the six best creative adaptations of Shakespeare in history, grouping it with Millais' painting Ophelia and Tom Stoppard's dark comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Tiffany's 2016 Gunpowder Percy follows the fortunes of one of the ringleaders of the infamous Gunpowder Plot, an instance of early-modern religious terrorism, and its chilling punishments, in England. Her 2013 novel, Paint, is based on the turbulent life of seventeenth-century poet Emilia Lanier, a reputed lover of Shakespeare and one of the first Englishwomen to see her writing in print. (Read Michigan Live's discussion of Paint at: http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2013/12/6_facts_about_the_scandalous_p.html.)

Tiffany's newest novel, The Owl Was a Baker's Daughter, explores the painful fracturing of a family caught up in the political and religious struggles of the English Civil War.  The book is forthcoming from HarperCollins in early 2025. Her latest academic book, from Arizona State University Press, is a translation of selected works by the Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges, entitled Borges on Shakespeare.

Grace Tiffany talks about writing, history, and fiction with Texas Radio's Jim McKeown at http://kwbu.org/post/behind-story-interview-grace-tiffany

 

To enter the vale of academia, scroll down.

 

GRACE CLEVELAND TIFFANY curriculum vitae

English Department, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI  49008

AREAS OF INTEREST AND EXPERTISE

Shakespeare, Renaissance drama and literature

ACADEMIC DEGREES

Ph.D., English, University of Notre Dame (1989)

Major field: Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama

Dissertation: "Power Plays: The Construction of Kingship in Shakespeare's Henriad"

M.A., English, University of Notre Dame (1985)

B.A., cum laude, Duke University (1980). Majors: English and History

TEACHING

Fall, 1995-           Professor (from 2003), Western Michigan Univ. (WMU)

- Shakespeare (graduate and undergraduate: ENGL 2520, 4520, 6100, 6520, 6530)

- Studies in Drama (undergraduate and graduate: ENGL 4420, 6420)

- Holy Road Trips (4100; team-taught special topics class)

- Renaissance Literature (graduate: ENGL 5320)

- Non-Shakespearean Renaissance Drama (graduate: ENGL 5970)

- M.A. Capstone Essay seminar (ENGL 6900)

- British Literature I (ENGL 3300)

- Narnia, Mordor, and Other-worlds (ENGL 2980)

- Literary Interpretation (ENGL 1100)

- Thought and Writing (ENGL 1050)

- Practicum in Teaching (ENGL 7130)

- Graduate study in Renaissance literature & doctoral readings (ENGL 7100, 7110)

- Ph.D. dissertation committee and honors thesis committee service / leadership

1990-95               Asst. Prof. Univ. of New Orleans (UNO): Tenured, promoted to associate, 4/95

-- Introduction to Poetry and Drama

-- English Composition

-- M.A. Thesis Direction (Shakespeare)

-- Shakespeare's Early Plays

-- Shakespeare's Late Plays

-- Introduction to Shakespeare

-- Renaissance Revenge Tragedy (graduate)

-- Sixteenth-Century Literature (graduate)

-- Independent Study in Shakespeare

-- Independent Study in Greek Tragedy

-- British Literature 800-1800 A.D.

-- Western Civilization: The Greeks (honors, team-taught)

-- Honors Writing Seminar

-- Written Argumentation

1989-90               Visiting Assistant Professor, Fordham University

-- Elizabethan and Jacobean Comedy

-- Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton

-- Seventeenth-Century Poetry

-- Tutorial: Shakespeare's Comic Heroines

-- World Drama

1985-89               Instructor, University of Notre Dame

-- World Drama

-- Regular and Remedial English Composition and Literature

OTHER PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE                                                                

2020-23               Program Committee, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI

1999-2000           General editor, WMU self-assessment report for NCA re-accreditation

1995-2000           Editorial Board, Comparative Drama

1995-97               Associate Editor, Comparative Drama

1993                     Dramaturg, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, The Comedy of Errors (Ray Vrazel)

1990                     Dramaturg, Riverside Shakespeare Company, NYC (Timothy Oman)

1983-85               Professional writing (informational brochures and newsletter) for Kalamazoo

                                 Alcohol & Drug Abuse Council (now Gateway Services), Kalamazoo, MI

1982-83               Professional writing for Robert J. Harmon & Assoc., a Washington, D.C., firm

PUBLICATIONS

BOOKS:

Ed., Borges on Shakespeare. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaiss. Studies Press, 2018.

Ed., with Margaret Dupuis. Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’.”                      NY: Modern Languages Association, 2013. (Teaching Literature Book Award nominee, 2015.)

Ed., The Tempest, by William Shakespeare. Evans Shakespeare Series. NY: Cengage, 2011.

Love’s Pilgrimage: The Holy Journey in English Renaissance Literature. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2006.

Ed. and intro., Reformations: Religion and Rulership on the Sixteenth-Century English Stage.                          Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1998.

Erotic Beasts & Social Monsters: Shakespeare, Jonson, and Comic Androgyny. Newark: U of Del. P, 1995.

Cymbeline, Shakespeare. New Variorum Edn. Ed. Maurice Hunt. Assistant editor (Tiffany). Forthcoming.

NOVELS:  The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter, forthcoming from Harper, 2025 (Spanish transl. 2026); Gunpowder Percy, Bagwyn Books, 2016; Paint, Bagwyn Books, 2013; The Turquoise Ring, Berkley, 2005 (Hebrew and Russian 2008; Hungarian 2010); Ariel, HarperCollins, 2005; Will, Berkley, 2004; My Father Had a Daughter: Judith Shakespeare’s Tale, Berkley, 2003 (Film Option: Entitled Entertainment, 2003).

POEMS: “Gertrude and Ophelia,” New Orleans Review, Spring, 2016, p. 22.

SHORT STORIES: “Everyone and No One,” in Borges on Shakespeare, ACMRS Press, 2018.

              “Subjectivity,” NPR Three-Minute Fiction, March, 2010

BOOK CHAPTERS AND ESSAYS IN COLLECTIONS:

“Twisted Shakespeare.” Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Bioadaptation, ed. Pete Smith, 2026.

“Shakespeare Adapts.” Selected Papers of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference. Vol. 14. 2024. Web.

“C. S. Lewis and Deathly Repetition (Including a Way Out for Screwtape).” Critical Insights: C. S. Lewis, ed. Robert C. Evans. Ipswich, MA: Salem Press, 2023, pp. 222-32.

“Plague in Shakespeare’s Time.” Corona Crisis: Gems from Debris, ed. Vikram Chopra. Delhi: Heritage, 2021, pp. 172-75.

“Shakespeare’s Savage Trees.” In Reading the Natural World: The Environment and the Ecology in the Global Middle Ages and Renaissance. Ed. Tom Willard, Belgium: Brepols, 2020, 197-208.

“Tolkien’s and Shakespeare’s People-Trees.” The Faithful Imagination: Papers from the 2018 C. S. Lewis Colloquium. ed. Joe Ricke and Ashley Chu. Hamden, CT, 2019: 196-205.

“Friendship and Hierarchy in Tolkien and Lewis.” Inklings Forever: Published Colloquium Proceedings    1997-2016. Vol. 10, Article 87. Available at https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever/vol10/iss1/87.

“Shakespeare’s Playwrights.” Shakespeare the Man, ed. R. W. Desai. Fairleigh Dickinson U P, 2014. 1-16.

“Shakespeare, Anti-Gallicism, and the Geneva Bible.” Word and Rite: The Bible and Ritual in Selected Shakespeare Plays, ed. E. Beatrice Batson. Cambridge, MA: The Scholar’s Press, 2010, 23-44.

“Hamlet, Reconciliation, and the Just State.” Reconciliation in Selected Shakespearean Dramas, ed. E. Beatrice Batson. Cambridge, MA: The Scholar’s Press, 2008. 43-67.

“Hamlet and Protestant Aural Theater,” Shakespeare’s Christianity: The Protestant and Catholic Poetics of Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Hamlet, ed. E. Beatrice Batson. Waco, TX: Baylor U P, 2006, 73-90.

“Borges and Shakespeare, Shakespeare and Borges.” Latin-American Shakespeares, ed. Bernice Kliman and Rick Santos. NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005, 145-65.

“Names in The Merchant of Venice.” The Merchant of Venice, ed. Mahons. NY: Routledge, 2002. 353-67.

“Calvinist Grace in Shakespeare’s Late Plays.” Selected Comedies and Late Romances of Shakespeare              from a Christian Perspective, ed. E. Beatrice Batson. NY: Mellen, 2002.

“Eden and the New World in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.” Critical Essays on the Myth of the American Adam, ed. Patea, Díaz-Sanchez. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2001. 45-52.

“Elizabethan Constructions of Kingship.” The Iconography of Power on the Renaissance Stage, ed. György Szönyi & Rowland Wymer, Papers in English & American Studies, vol. 8.Szeged, Hungary: Institute of English and American Studies, 2000. 89-116.

“How Revolutionary Is Cross-Cast Shakespeare?" Shakespeare: Text and Theater, ed. Lois Potter and Arthur Kinney. Newark: U of Del. P, 1999. 120-35.

JOURNAL ARTICLES                                                                                         

“Macbeth, Herod, and the Ars Moriendi,” Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 38 (2025).

“’Who is’t can read a woman?’ The Power of ‘Nothing’ in Shakespeare’s Plays.” An Unexpected Journal, December, 2022 (5:4): 90-106.

 “Paganism and Reform in Shakespeare’s Plays.” Religions 2018, 9 (7), 214 ff. Web.

 “’Action may / conveniently the rest convey’: Shakespeare and the Stage Translation of Gower." English Studies 96:8 (December, 2015): 880-890.

“C. S. Lewis: The Anti-Platonic Platonist.” Christianity and Literature 63:3 (Spring, 2014): 357-71.

 “Shakespeare’s Miracle Plays.” English Studies 93:1 (Feb. 2012): 1-13.

“Shakespeare’s Parables.” Reformation 16 (2011): 145-161.                               

“Rank, Insults, and Weaponry in Shakespeare’s Second Tetralogy.”  PLL 47:3 (Summer, 2011):  295-317.

“Law and Self-Interest in The Merchant of Venice.” PLL  42:4 (Fall 2006):384-400. Repr. Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: _The Merchant of Venice_, ed. Harold Bloom. NY: Infobase, 2010. 173-185.

“Hamlet, Reconciliation, and the Just State.” Renascence 58:2 (Winter 2005): 111-134.

 “Hamlet and Protestant Aural Theater.” Christianity and Lit. 52:3 (S 2003):307-24. Repr. Gale, 2007.

“Shakespeare and Santiago de Compostela.” Renascence 54:2 (Winter 2002): 87-107.

“Calvinist Grace in Shakespeare’s Romances. Christianity and Literature 49:4 (Summer 2000): 1-25.

"Shakespeare's Dionysian Prince." Renaissance Quarterly 52:2 (Summer 1999): 366-81. Repr. Bloom’s  Shakespeare Through the Ages: _Henry V_, ed. Harold Bloom. NY: Infobase, 2010. 233-48.

"Puritanism in Comic History: Destabilizing Hierarchy in the Henry Plays." Shak. Stud. 26 (1998): 256-87.

"Macbeth, Paternity, and the Anglicization of James I." Studies in the Humanities 23:2 (Dec. 1996):148-62.

"Doing Much Ado with Undergraduates." Shakespeare and the Classroom 4:2 (Fall 1996): 68-71.

"Anti-Theatricalism and Revolutionary Desire in Hamlet." The Upstart Crow 15 (1995): 1-14.

"`That Reason Wonder May Diminish': Shakespeare, Androgyny, and the Theater Wars." The Huntington Library Quarterly 57:3 (Summer 1994): 213-39.

"Not Saying No: Female Self-Erasure in Troilus and Cressida." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 35:1 (Spring 1993): 44-56. Repr. in Shakespeare Criticism, ed. M. Lee, L.A.: Gale Group, 2001.

"Falstaff's False Staff: `Jonsonian' Asexuality in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Comparative Drama 26:3 (Fall 1992): 254-70. Repr. Shakespeare Criticism Yearbook, ed. Tardiff, Detroit: Gale Publ., Inc., 1994; and in Shakespearian Criticism, ed. Barnes, Detroit: Gale Publications, Inc., Winter, 1998.

"Our Mutual Friend in `Eumaeus': Joyce Appropriates Dickens." JML 16:4 (Spring 1990): 643-46.

BOOK AND THEATER REVIEWS:

“Side View of Macbeth: Ralph Fiennes,” The Shakespeare Newsletter 73 (1-2): Fall, 2024.

Adrian Streete, Protestantism and Drama in Early Modern England. Christianity and Literature 61:2 (Winter, 2012): 307-09.

William C. Carroll, ed., Love’s Labor’s Lost, William Shakespeare.  English Studies 92:2 (2011): 229-30.

Ian McAdam, Magic and Masculinity in Early Modern English Drama. 17^th- Century News 69:1-2              (Spring-Summer 2011): 27-30.

Robert Hornback, The English Clown Tradition from the Middle Ages to Shakespeare. The Shakespeare Quarterly 61:4 (Winter, 2010): 590-592.

Stratford Shakes. Festival, Bartholomew Fair, Shakespeare Newsletter 59:3(279) (W 2009-10): 87-88.

Jeanne Addison Roberts. Literary Criticism as Dream Analysis: Essays on Renaissance and Modern          Writers. The Shakespeare Newsletter 59:2, 278 (Fall 2009): 75-76.

Tho. Rist, Revenge Tragedy & the Drama of Commemoration in Early Modern England. EngSt 90:6 (’09)

A. D. Nuttall, Shakespeare the Thinker. Christianity and Literature 57:3 (2008): 473-76.

Julie Crawford, Marvelous Protestantism: Monstrous Births in Post-Reformation England. Medieval and  Renaissance Drama in England 21 (January, 2008).

Kenneth Gross, Shakespeare’s Noise. Comparative Drama 35:3-4 (Spring 2002): 479-82.

Patrick Cheney, Marlowe's Counterfeit Profession. Comparative Drama 34:1 (Spring, 2000): 121-24.

Frank Whigham, Seizures of the Will in Early Modern English Drama.17th-Century News 56:3(1998):80-2.

John Kerrigan, Revenge Tragedy: Aeschylus to Armageddon. Comparative Drama 31:2 (1997): 326-28.

James Shapiro, Shakespeare and the Jews. Comparative Drama 30:3 (Fall 1996): 415-17.

Alan Dessen, Recovering Shakespeare's Theatrical Vocabulary. Comparative Drama 29:4 (W’96):532-34.

John Drakakis, ed., New Casebooks: Antony and Cleopatra. Shakespeare Newsletter 45:2 (225, 1995): 42.

Marco Mincoff, Things Supernatural and Causeless, and James Howe, A Buddhist's  Shakespeare. Comparative Drama 29:2 (Summer 1995): 290-94.

Anne Barton, Essays: Mainly Shakespearean. Comparative Drama 28:4 (Winter 1994-95): 539-42.

David Farley-Hills, Shakespeare and the Rival Playwrights: 1600-1606. Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England (October 1994): 367-71.

Brian Vickers, Appropriating Shakespeare. Comparative Drama 28:2 (Summer 1994): 252-57.

G. Holderness, N. Potter, & J. Turner, Shakespeare:The Play of History. Sh. Studies 21 (1992): 274-78.

Margaret P. Hannay, ed., Silent but for the Word: Tudor Women as Patrons, Translators, and Writers of Religious Works. Religion and Literature 20:2 (Summer 1988): 95-97.

VARIA:

Outside reviewer, promotion, Ithaca Col., 2024, Tulane, 2021; tenure, U of Mass-Boston, 2014, 2009

Periodical reviews for The Shakespeare Newsletter (quarterly), 1994 through 2024

Liner notes (with Delfeayo Marsalis), Branford Marsalis's Bloomington, CBS Records, April 1993

Comment, "Forum," PMLA 104:2 (March 1989): 217.

Engaged by Broadview Press to evaluate edition of Henry IV, part 1, for publication, 2012

Ms. reader: Palgrave-Macmillan, Routledge, Bloomsbury, Journal of Comparative Literature, Comparative Drama, Christianity and Literature, PLL, Renaissance and Reformation, JEMCS, Shakespeare

PROFESSIONAL RECOGNITION / AWARDS

Invited plenary speaker, South Central Renaissance Association annual meeting, St. Louis, June, 2025

Timothy Hurttgam Memorial Faculty Award for Special Scholastic Achievement 2022

Invited Shakespeare speaker, Oakland U, March, 2020, “Shakespeare and Gunpowder”

Invited Judge, C. S. Lewis and Friends Colloquium Undergraduate Writing Competition, May, 2020

Invited speaker, Taylor University “Making Literature” Conference, March 2-4, 2017

Invited speaker, Wayne State Celebration of First Folio Tour, Detroit, March 10-12, 2016

Hudson Strode invited speaker, University of Alabama (sponsored by their English dept.), February, 2014

Invited speaker, “Sunday Salon,” Chicago, January, 2014

Invited keynote speaker, Shakespeare at Kalamazoo annual meeting, 49^th Medieval Congress, 2014

Semi-finalist, Faulkner-Wisdom Writing Contest 2013, Creative Nonfiction Category, for Luck

Distinguished University Professor, Western Michigan University, 2010

Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society, honorary faculty member (student-given award), 2010

Invited undergraduate thesis director (and speaker), Knox College, 2010

Keynote speaker, Wheaton College Summer Shakespeare Institute, 2008

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Achievement Award in Research and Creative Activity, 2007

Invited participant (with $900 award), Liberty Fund Annual Colloquium, Indianapolis, Oct., 2007

Invited lecturer for “The Vocation of Seeking Truth,” WMU Graduate College lecture series, 2007

Featured Speaker, “Shakespeare and Shylock,” Jewish Historical Society of Washington, D.C., May, 2007

Featured Writer, Western Illinois University Creative Writing Festival, 2007

Sakura Medalist (for Ariel), Japan, 2006-07

Invited panelist, Kalamazoo College, community “Reading Together” event, February, 2007

Ariel (historical novel) listed as a Best Book for Young Adults by American Library Association, 2006

Invited speaker, George Mason University Lifelong Learning Institute, 2006

Invited speaker, Andrews University, 2005

Invited speaker, Central Michigan University, 2005

Invited to be one of panel of authors (subject: historical fiction), Ann Arbor Literary Festival, 2005

My Father Had a Daughter chosen by Booksense 76: Independent Booksellers’ 76 Best Books 2003

FRACASF grants, Western Michigan University, 1996, 2002, 2006, 2011

Sabbatical leave granted 2001-02, 2008-09, Fall 2015, by WMU

Invited lecturer, University of Salamanca, Spain, March, 1999

Invited speaker, Wheaton College Summer Shakespeare Institute, 2005, 2003, 1999, 1996

Selected to participate, Calvin College Faculty Seminar on Puritanism, 1997 -- $2500 grant

Invited speaker (on Shakespeare), Knox College, Oct., 1996

Invited speaker, Grand Valley State University’s Shakespeare Festival, 1996

University of New Orleans Summer Scholarship Funding, 1991, 1992, and 1994

1993 University of New Orleans English Department nominee for Outstanding Scholar Award

1992, 1993 University of New Orleans Liberal Arts College junior nominee for NEH Grant

University of New Orleans Liberal Arts Research Award, 1991

Notre Dame: Zahm Grant for research overseas, 1988, and Dissertation Year Fellowship, 1988-89 

 

 PROFESSIONAL CONFERENCES: Papers, Roundtables                                       

“’A Fugitive and Cloistered Virtue’: Reconciling Book 9 of Paradise Lost with Milton’s Areopagitica.”         Milton Society of America, St. Louis, June, 2024

“Shakespeare’s Medievalism,” organizer and presider, Int’l Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, May, 2024

“Macbeth, Herod, and the Ars Moriendi,” Roundtable, Int’l Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, May, 2024

“Mirrors and Doubling in Shakespeare,” Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, March, 2024

“What Happened to Hermione?” Roundtable discussion, Kzoo Medieval Congress, May, 2023

“Shakespeare’s Otherworlds,” Shakespeare Assn. of America, Minneapolis, March, 2023

“Shakespeare Adapts,” Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference, Oct., 2022

“A Second Chance for Screwtape,” Taylor University C. S. Lewis Colloquium, May, 2020

“Shakespeare’s Guns,” Blackfriars Theater History Conference, Staunton, VA, October, 2019

Moderator, “C. S. Lewis and the Consolation Tradition,” Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, May, 2019

“Shakespeare’s Secular Saints,” Shakespeare Association of America, Washington, D.C., April, 2019

“Tolkien’s and Shakespeare’s Trees,” C. S. Lewis Biannual Conference, Taylor U., Upland, IN, June, 2018

“C. S. Lewis and Deathly Repetition,” International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, May, 2018

“Shakespeare’s Savage Trees,” ACMRS Conference, Phoenix, February, 2018

“Lewis, Tolkien, and Friendship,” C.S. Lewis Biannual Conference, Taylor U., Upland, IN, June, 2016

“Jonson, Shakespeare, Print, Stage,” Shakespeare Association of America, New Orleans, March, 2016

“Shakespeare and Historical Fiction,” ACMRS, Phoenix, February, 2016

“Print and Coin in Shakespeare and Jonson,” Shakespeare Theatre Conference, Stratford, ON, June, 2015

Moderator, C. S. Lewis and Medievalism panel, 50^th Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, 2015

“Shakespeare and the Stage Translation of Gower.” 3rd Gower Conference, U. of Rochester, June, 2014

“Shrews before Shakespeare,” panel participant, 49^th Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, May, 2014

 “C. S. Lewis’s Platonism,” 48^th Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, May, 2013

 “Shakespearean Legs and Swords,” Shakespeare Association Annual Meeting, Toronto, March, 2013

“Shakespeare’s Parables.” Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, May, 2012

 “Shakespeare, Parables and the Bible.” Purdue Renaissance Prose Conference, September, 2011

“Shakespeare’s Miracle Plays,” 45^th International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, May, 2010

“Shakespeare and Gunpowder,” Shakespeare Association of America, Washington, D.C., April, 2009

“Shakespeare, Anti-Gallicism, and the Geneva Bible,” Wheaton College Shakespeare Inst., 2008

“Broken Ceremonies and Abortive Rituals in Shakespeare,” Wheaton College Shakespeare Inst., 2008

“Shakespeare’s Anti-Gallicism,” Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies (GEMCS), Chicago, 2007

“Law and Self-Interest in The Merchant of Venice,” Ohio Shakespeare Conference, Nov., 2005

“Reconciliation in Hamlet.” Summer Shakespeare Institute, Wheaton College, June, 2005

“The Just State in Hamlet,” 40^th International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, 2005

“Imperial Pilgrimage in Shakespeare,” Shakespeare Association of America (SAA), New Orleans, 2004

“Shakespeare Calls on the Gods,” Blackfriars Conference, Staunton, VA, October, 2003

 “Hamlet and Protestant Aural Theater” (& Hamlet workshop), Wheaton Col. Shakespeare Inst., June 2003.

 “Shakespeare and Santiago de Compostela,” SAA, Minneapolis, March 23-25, 2002

“Time and Virginity in Othello,” GEMCS, New Orleans, LA, Nov. 16-19, 2000

"The  Ethic of Work in Shakespeare's Henriad," GEMCS, Miami, Fla., Oct., 1999

"Tragedy in Shakespeare's Romances," and led workshop, Shakespeare Inst., Wheaton Coll., June, 1999

"Eden in Shakespeare's The Tempest," Congress on The American Adam, Salamanca, Spain, March, 1999

Folger Shakespeare Library, “Shakespeare and the Jews”: With L. Apelbaum, Director, Jewish Historical Society of Washington, D.C., arranged talk by James Shapiro of Columbia U., July, 1998

Organized, chaired panel, "Shakespeare's Medievalism," 32^nd Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, 1997

"Shakespeare's `Athenian' History Play," SAA, Washington, D.C., March 26-19, 1997

Led seminar: Teaching Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, Wheaton Col. Shakesp. Inst., June, 1996

"Macbeth, Paternity, and the Anglicization of James I," Medieval Studies Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, May 9-12, 1996. Also chaired a session on Shakespeare and medieval drama at this congress.

"Jessica's Ring," Ohio Shakespeare Conference, Wright State Univ. (Dayton), Feb. 28-March 1, 1996

"Shakespeare, Post-Structuralism, and the Bible," Lit. & Spirit Conf., St. Xavier U, Chicago, Oct., 1995

"Stichomythic Blank Verse in Shakespearean Comedy," SAA, Chicago, April, 1995

"How to Stop a Long-Winded Speaker" (parody panel), MLA, San Diego, Dec., 1994

"Anti-Theatricalism in Hamlet (Or, the Play Without the Play)," SAA, Albuquerque, April, 1994

"As You Like It as Shakespeare's Blast in the Theater Wars," SCLA, Austin, Texas, Oct., 1993

“Plato, Androgyny, and Renaissance Classicism.” Southeast Mediev. Assn., Tulane, New Orleans, 1993

“Conjugal Beasts and Social Monstrosities,” 2^nd Conference on Arts and Public Policy, Orlando, 1993

"Ben Jonson and the Androgyne," Sixteenth-Century Studies Association, Atlanta, Oct., 1992

"Lyly, Shakespeare, and the Monstrous Androgyne," SAA, Kansas City, Kansas, April, 1992

"Falstaff's False Staff: `Jonsonian' Asexuality in The Merry Wives of Windsor," South Central Renaissance Conference, New Orleans, April, 1991

"Uncontainable Subversion in Shakespeare's Second Tetralogy," First Conference on Arts and Public Policy, Orlando, Florida, March, 1991

"Elizabethan and Stuart Political Emblems." Glasgow Internat’l Emblem Conference, Scotland, Aug., 1990

"Tamburlaine & Marlovian Skepticism," 2nd Conf., Marlowe Society of America, Oxford, UK, Aug. 1988

"Richard Lovelace's Royalist Love Poetry," Second Annual Interdisciplinary Conference, Centre for Seventeenth-Century Studies, Durham, England, July, 1987

"Tamburlaine’s Tragedy," Summer Renaissance Conference, Newberry Library, Chicago, June, 1985

UNIVERSITY SERVICE                                                                                                   

Western Michigan University

2023-25               Chair, English Department Tenure and Promotions Committee

2022-24               Co-Chair, English Department Policy Committee

2022-23               Board Member, Medieval Institute (and congress program committee, 2020, 2022, 2023)

2020-22               College of Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee

2018-20               WMU College Promotion Committee

2018-19               Chair, Sabbatical Leave Committee

2017-19               WMU English Dept. Tenure and Promotions Committee

2015-16               Departmental Strategic Planning and Assessment Committee

2015-16               Member, graduate student orals committee

2014 – 16             (and 1996-98)      Member, secretary, co-chair, departmental policy committee

2013                     Director, undergraduate honors thesis

2013 -                  Member, university teaching mentor committee

2013-15               (and 1998-2000)   Member, departmental graduate committee

2012-13               Member, departmental morale committee

2005-07, 09-11, 14-15 Co-chair or member, English department Tenure and Promotion Committee  

2010                     Chair, departmental Sabbatical Leave Committee

2009                    Member, ad hoc committee to contribute to formation of WMU Strategic Plan

2005-08               College Promotions Committee (2007-08 chair, humanities subdivision)

2007                     Member, ad hoc committee to suggest changes for departmental policy statement

2007                     Member of group of university facilitators for community “Reading Together” event

2007                     Member, FRACASF grant-awarding committee

2005-06               Member, ad hoc committee to compile graduate program self-assessment report

2004-05               Chair, departmental search committee, Early Modern Drama candidate

2004                     Inviter and host of Colloquium Committee featured speaker David Bevington

2003-04               Member, interdepartmental Hiring Committee for new Dean of Arts of Sciences

2003-04               Member, English department Tenure and Promotion Committee

2003-04               Chair, departmental search committee, Renaissance literature candidate

1999-2001           Member, Faculty Senate

1999-2000           Editor, WMU self-assessment report for NCA academic accreditation

1998-2000           Ad hoc committee on hiring drama fellow

1997-99               Ad hoc committee on and author of student rights & responsibilities policy statement 

1996-98               University Undergraduate Studies Committee

1996-98               English Department Personnel Committee

1995-96               English Department Undergraduate Committee

University of New Orleans             

1994-95               English Department Undergraduate Advisory Committee

1993-95               Editor, English departmental newsletter

1993-95               Undergraduate Grade Appeals Committee

1991-93               Secretary, English Department Graduate Advisory Committee

1992                     Ad hoc committee to refine writing proficiency exam

1991-92               Ad hoc committee to explore comparative studies degree

Fordham University:     1989-90      Helped develop university plagiarism policy

COMMUNITY SERVICE                                                                                   

2020                     Volunteer, Soul Box Gun Violence Awareness Project, Washington, D.C.

2019                     Participant, Extinction Reaction (Climate Change Action Group)

2019                     With Beth Bradburn, led Adult Spelling Bee fundraiser FBO Kalamazoo Public Library

2016-                   Volunteer with Syrian immigrants’ accommodations to Kalamazoo

2013                     Volunteer, Kalamazoo Gospel Mission store

1995-96               Adult reading tutor, Kalamazoo, Michigan

1991-95               Volunteer, Operation Mainstream (adult literacy tutoring), New Orleans, LA