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Emma Smith

Academic Position:

CUF Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow

College:

Hertford

Research Interests:

Early Modern

Links:

Faculty Profile Page | College Profile Page | Online Podcasts | Sprint for Shakespeare | Personal Website

Dr Emma Smith's research combines a range of approaches to Shakespeare and early modern drama. She is currently working on the First Folio (1623), a project combining aspects of the history of the book, histories of reading, and the interpretation of Shakespeare on the page. Her next project will be on the construction of character in printed drama. With Tamara Atkin at QMUL, she is working on the way cast lists in printed drama through the sixteenth and seventeenth century can inform our understanding of the experience of seeing, as well as reading, plays. She is part of a team of scholars revising the Riverside Shakespeare under the general editorship of Douglas Bruster. She is also interested in drama in performance, in the methodology of writing about theatre, in reviewing and its rhetoric, and in developing analogies between cinema, film theory, and early modern performance. She is working with Charlotte Brewer on a pilot project on the Oxford English Dictionary and Shakespeare, which they hope will develop into a website and associated publications on the issue of Shakespeare’s linguistic creativity and how it has been recorded. Pedagogy is important to her and she continues to work on readerly editions of early modern texts and on books, articles and lectures which disseminate research to the widest possible audience. A good example is her involvement in the 'Sprint for Shakespeare' project.

Recent Publications

Macbeth: Language and Writing (Arden, 2013)
The Elizabethan Top Ten: Defining Print Popularity in Early Modern England co-edited with Andy Kesson (Ashgate, 2013)
Christopher Marlowe in Context, co-edited with Emily C. Bartels (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
'Was Shylock Jewish?', Shakespeare Quarterly (2013)
Thirty Great Myths About Shakespeare, co-authored with Laurie Maguire (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)

#	Title	Description	Contributor
1	The Revenger's Tragedy: Thomas Middleton	A blackly camp tragedy - Hamlet without the narcissism - set in a court corrupted by lust and...	Emma Smith
2	The Comedy of Errors	Lecture 12 in the Approaching Shakespeare series asks how seriously we can take the farcical...	Emma Smith
3	The Duchess of Malfi: John Webster	In dramatizing a woman's sexual choices in a notably sympathetic manner, this tragedy...	Emma Smith
4	Twelfth Night	The seventh Approaching Shakespeare lecture takes a minor character in Twelfth Night - Antonio...	Emma Smith
5	Henry V	The second lecture in the Approaching Shakespeare series looks at King Henry V, and asks whether...	Emma Smith
6	Henry IV part 1	Like generations of theatre-goers, this lecture concentrates on the (large) figure of Sir John...	Emma Smith
7	Richard II	Lecture eight in the Approaching Shakespeare series asks the question that structures Richard II...	Emma Smith
8	Antony and Cleopatra	What kind of tragedy is this play, with its two central figures rather than a singular hero? The...	Emma Smith
9	Measure for Measure	The third Approaching Shakespeare lecture, on Measure for Measure, focuses on the vexed question...	Emma Smith
10	King John	At the heart of King John is the death of his rival Arthur: this fifteenth lecture in the...	Emma Smith
11	Richard III	In this thirteenth lecture in the Approaching Shakespeare series the focus is on the...	Emma Smith
12	A Midsummer Night's Dream	This lecture on A Midsummer Night's Dream uses modern and early modern understandings of...	Emma Smith
13	16.To Shakespeare and Beyond: a panel discussion.	Cultural Connections discussion panel Casandra Ash, Peter Kirwan, Jose Perez Diaz and Emma Smith...	Cassandra Ash, Peter Kirwan, José Pérez Díez, Emma Smith
14	Othello	Othello - First in Emma Smith's Approaching Shakespeare lecture series; looking at the...	Emma Smith
15	King Lear	Showing how generations of critics - and Shakespeare himself - have rewritten the ending of King...	Emma Smith
16	Titus Andronicus	Focusing in detail on one particular scene, and on critical responses to it, this sixth...	Emma Smith
17	Taming of the Shrew	Emma Smith uses evidence of early reception and from more recent productions to discuss the...	Emma Smith
18	The Shoemaker's Holiday: Thomas Dekker	Like a Busby Berkeley depression-era musical, Dekker's comedy is a feel-good antidote to a...	Emma Smith
19	The Bodleian Shakespeare: A treasure lost... and regained	From the 2010 Alumni Weekend. Emma Smith reveals how Oxford University mobilised Alumni support...	Emma Smith
20	The Merchant of Venice	This lecture on The Merchant of Venice discusses the ways the play's personal relationships...	Emma Smith
21	Arden of Faversham: Anon	A true crime story of the murder of Thomas Arden by his wife and her lover, this play is...	Emma Smith
22	The Roaring Girl: Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker	Based on a contemporary scandal of a woman who dressed in male clothing, this play of topsy-...	Emma Smith
23	Much Ado About Nothing	Emma Smith asks why the characters are so quick to believe the self-proclaimed villain Don John...	Emma Smith
24	The Winter's Tale	How we can make sense of a play that veers from tragedy to comedy and stretches credulity in its...	Emma Smith
25	The Spanish Tragedy: Thomas Kyd	Popular tragedy in which Hieronimo pursues aristocratic murderers of his son Horatio and takes...	Emma Smith
26	Macbeth	In this fourth Approaching Shakespeare lecture the question is one of agency: who or what makes...	Emma Smith
27	Hamlet	The fact that father and son share the same name in Hamlet is used to investigate the play'...	Emma Smith
28	The Tempest	That the character of Prospero is a Shakespearean self-portrait is a common reading of The...	Emma Smith
29	As You Like It	Asking 'what happens in As You Like It', this lecture considers the play's...	Emma Smith
30	Why should we study Shakespeare?	Dr Emma Smith of Hertford College, Oxford, discusses her current research and proposes why we...	Emma Smith, Ilana Lassman
31	Pericles, Prince of Tyre	Pericles has been on the margins of the Shakespearean canon: this fourteenth lecture in the...	Emma Smith
32	Coriolanus	This lecture takes up a detail from Shakespeare’s late Roman tragedy Coriolanus to ask about the...	Emma Smith
33	Romeo and Juliet	This lecture on Romeo and Juliet tackles the issue of the spoiler-chorus, in an already-too-...	Emma Smith
34	Julius Caesar	This lecture on Julius Caesar discusses structure, tone, and politics by focusing on the cameo...	Emma Smith
35	Love's Labour's Lost	Emma Smith continues her Approaching Shakespeare series with a lecture on the play Love's Labour...	Emma Smith
36	Timon of Athens	Emma Smith finishes her Approaching Shakespeare series with a lecture on the play Timon of...	Emma Smith
37	Dr Faustus: Christopher Marlowe	Emma Smith's lecture on this infernal play discusses Elizabethan religion, the revisions to the...	Emma Smith
38	The Alchemist: Ben Jonson	Written in the context of plague in London, The Alchemist’s plot and language are deeply...	Emma Smith
39	A Chaste Maid in Cheapside: Thomas Middleton	This lecture discusses comedy, fertility, and all those illegitimate children in this play about...	Emma Smith
40	The Witch Of Edmonton	A collaborative play about witchcraft, bigamy - and a talking dog - what more could you want?...	Emma Smith
41	Tis Pity She's a Whore: John Ford	This lecture discusses the play’s reboot of Romeo and Juliet and other Elizabethan plays, its...	Emma Smith
42	The Tamer Tam'd: John Fletcher	Fletcher’s play is a riposte to Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew: in this lecture I discuss...	Emma Smith
43	Cymbeline	Professor Emma Smith continues her Approaching Shakespeare series with a lecture on one of...	Emma Smith
44	All's Well That Ends Well	Professor Emma Smith lectures on Shakespeare’s comedy All's Well That Ends Well.	Emma Smith
45	The Merry Wives of Windsor	Professor Emma Smith lectures on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.	Emma Smith
46	Henry VI, Part 2	Professor Emma Smith continues her Approaching Shakespeare series with a 2017 lecture on the...	Emma Smith
47	The Two Gentlemen of Verona	Professor Emma Smith gives the last of her 2017 Shakespeare lectures on his early comedy, Two...	Emma Smith

#	Title	Description	Contributor
1	16.To Shakespeare and Beyond: a panel discussion.	Cultural Connections discussion panel Casandra Ash, Peter Kirwan, Jose Perez Diaz and Emma Smith...	Cassandra Ash, Peter Kirwan, José Pérez Díez, Emma Smith
2	Memorialising Shakespeare: The First Folio and other elegies	Emma Smith (Professor of English Literature, Oxford), gives a talk on Shakespeare memorials. Ben...	Emma Smith

#	Essay Title	Description	Contributor
1	William Shakespeare	How William Shakespeare (...	Emma Smith
2	Renaissance Theatre	By Emma Smith	Emma Smith
3	Shakespeare's Contemporary dramatists	By Emma Smith	Emma Smith
4	Early Modern Drama on the Page and Stage	By Emma Smith	Emma Smith