JAMES PURKIS

Courses Recently Taught

Undergraduate

232E; Shakespeare and Drama
233E; Topics in Early Modern Drama

My PhD thesis explored the forms in which the author plays a role in the reception of early modern literature by looking at recent theoretical debates over theatrical collaboration and seventeenth-century woman-debate writing. Since then, my research has focused on early modern dramatic manuscripts. I am currently writing a book that examines how the social practices involved in the production of theatrical texts may be read through their documentary traces, and what these practices mean for our understanding of authorial canons in general, and the Shakespeare canon in particular. I also have an interest in editorial theory, while my next project will explore how writing in the early modern England was shaped by notions of masculinity and desire.

Shakespeare &C.: Manuscript, Collaboration, and Canon after Theory. A monograph on early modern manuscript drama that brings together textual studies with recent historicist and theoretical critiques of the author.

‘Foul papers, Prompt Books, and Thomas Heywood’s The Captives’ MRDE (forthcoming 2008).

Areas

• Drama to the Restoration