Jess Hamlet, Ph.D.

Jess

Hamlet

Assistant Professor of English

226

Biography

Jess Hamlet is Assistant Professor of English at Alvernia University in Reading, PA, where she teaches courses on topics ranging from from Shakespeare to true crime. She holds a PhD in Renaissance Studies as well as both an MLitt and an MFA in Shakespeare & Performance. Her research focuses on early modern drama, Shakespeare and race, and public humanities. She co-hosts "The Hurly Burly Shakespeare Show!" podcast. Her work on Shakespeare and race, the early modern book trade, stage directions, and Shakespeare’s afterlives appears in "The Journal of the Wooden O, The CEA Critic," and edited collections from Palgrave, Routledge, and Arden.

Education

Courses Taught

ENG 205: Early British Literature

ENG 216: Women in Literature

ENG 220: Later British Literature

ENG 250: African American Literature

ENG 251: Latinx Literature

ENG 252: Indigenous Literature

ENG 253: Queer Literature

ENG 254: Literature of Disability

ENG 260: Medieval Literature

ENG 262: Victorian Literature

ENG 303: Why Shakespeare Now?

ENG 330: Renaissance Drama

ENG 331: Renaissance Literature

ENG 420: Major Writers

Dr. Hamlet has also offered Special Topics courses on revenge, true crime, and Taylor Swift

Research Interests

Honors & Awards

Faculty Excellence Grant (2022)

Outstanding Dissertation Award, The University of Alabama College of Arts & Sciences (2022) “Shakespeare, Race, and Adaptation in Times of Unrest, 1601-1888”

Outstanding Dissertation Award, The University of Alabama English Department (2021) Graduate Student Conference Presentation Award, Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender (2020)

Buford Boone Award for Excellence in Teaching, The University of Alabama (2020)

Outstanding Research by a Doctoral Student, English, The University of Alabama (2018)

Andrew Gurr Award for Outstanding Thesis, Mary Baldwin University (2015) “‘A Deed Without a Name’: Macbeth, Richard III, and the Regicidal Fantasies of Civil War Virginia”

Publications

Monographs

Shakespeare as Paratext to Power (in preparation)

Following Shakespeare’s appearance in personal and public, nontheatrical documents (newspapers, novels, commonplace books, speeches, social media posts) from the seventeenth century to today, this book examines how Shakespeare in the popular consciousness contributes to the construction and codification of power structures, particularly those invested in White supremacy.

Peer-reviewed articles

In preparation “Portraits as Pedagogy: Learning Close Reading, History, and Literature from Dido Belle,” with Molly Seremet.

2019 “‘One drop of nature makes the whole world kin’: Shakespeare and the Construction of Race in Charles W. Chesnutt’s The House Behind the Cedars,” The Journal of the Wooden O 19, 33–50

2015 “Browsing Early English Bookstalls,” CEA Critic, 77, no. 3: 284–88, https://doi.org/10.1353/cea.2015.0030

Peer-reviewed book chapters

2021 “‘As bountiful as mines of India’: Shakespeare in/as India and the First War of Indian Independence, 1857–1889,” Shakespeare and Civil Unrest in Britain and the United States, eds. Mark Bayer and Joseph Navitsky (Routledge 2021)

2019 “‘Not of an Age, but for all Time’: Reflections of Shakespeare in Civil War Virginia,” “Experienced Age knows what for Youth is fit?”: Generational and Familial Conflict in British and Irish Drama and Theatre, ed. Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon, 167–88 (Peter Lang)

2018 “‘Peter falls into the hole’: Nonce Stage Directions and the Idea of the Dictionary” with Paul Menzer, Stage Directions and Shakespearean Theatre, eds. Sarah Dustagheer and Gillian Woods, 69–90 (Bloomsbury)

2017 “‘Born in a tempest when my mother died’: Shakespeare’s Motherless Daughters,” The Absent Mother in the Cultural Imagination, ed. Berit Åström, 111–26 (Palgrave Macmillan)

Digital Humanities projects

2017– Co-host, The Hurly Burly Shakespeare Show! Podcast, https://hurlyburlyshakespeareshow.com

Peer-reviewed in Borrowers & Lenders 13, no. 2, borrowers.uga.edu

Presentations

Invited Talks

2021 “The Hurly Burly Shakespeare Show,” in conversation with the Oxford University Media Society, Oxford University, UK (Nov. 2)

2019 “Hamlet without Hamlet: Shakespeare in Nineteenth-Century America,” Mary Baldwin University, Staunton, VA (Mar. 14)

2019 “Remixing Teaching: Saying F**k with the Hurly Burly Shakespeare Show,” Remixing the Humanities podcast, eds. Devori Kimbro, Michael Noschka, and Geoffrey Way (Jan. 15)

2018 “Magic and Status and Pirates, oh my!: Lecture on Doctor Faustus, Twelfth Night, and Pericles,” American Shakespeare Center, Staunton, VA (Jul. 25)

Sessions Organized

2022 “Early Modern Theatre Studies and Podcasting” [with Sheila Coursey], Shakespeare Association of America, Jacksonville, FL

2021 “Shakespeare, Race, and Adaptation,” Renaissance Society of America (Apr. 15) [virtual due to COVID-19]

Papers Presented

2021 “Diverse and Inclusive Shakespeare Syllabus,” the Activist Shakespearean on the University Campus workshop, Shakespeare Association of America (Apr. 2) [virtual due to COVID-19]

2020 “‘As bountiful as mines of India’: Shakespeare in/as the Indian Mutiny, 1857–58,” Shakespeare and Civil Unrest seminar, Shakespeare Association of America, Denver, CO (Apr. 17) [virtual due to COVID-19]

2019 “The Hurly Burly Shakespeare Show!” Digital exhibit, Shakespeare Association of America, Washington, D.C. (Apr. 19)

2019 “‘My wife is nothing’: Suppression of the Female in Pandosto and The Winter’s Tale,” The Sexed Body on the Early Modern Stage seminar, Shakespeare Association of America, Washington, D.C. (Apr. 19)

2018 “Praxis Roundtable: Relatable Shakespeare,” Teaching Shakespeare in and Beyond the Classroom, Biannual Strode Symposium, The University of Alabama (Feb. 24)

2017 “Shakespeare in the Nineteenth Century Novel.” Biannual Blackfriars Conference, American Shakespeare Center, Staunton, VA (Oct. 28)

2017 “‘Kicks her and exit’: Staging Violence in The City Nightcap,” South-Central Renaissance Conference, University of Texas, Austin, TX (Apr. 21)

2016 “‘A deed without a name’: Macbeth, Richard III, and the Regicidal Fantasies of Civil War Virginia,” Shakespeare in the South: Ten Years Later seminar, Shakespeare Association of America, New Orleans, LA (Mar. 23)

2015 “Q2 Hamlet and its Neighbors,” Biannual Blackfriars Conference, American Shakespeare Center, Staunton, VA (Oct. 27)

2015 “Browsing Early English Bookstalls,” College English Association Conference, Indianapolis, IN (Mar. 27)

Campus and Departmental Talks

2021 “Shakespeare and (White) Power,” Faculty Salon Series, Alvernia University (Oct. 29)

2019 “‘My wife is nothing’: Suppression of the Female in Pandosto and The Winter’s Tale,” Emerging Scholars series, The University of Alabama (Apr. 5)