Personal Profile

I have recently been invited to become an Honorary Member of the Sophia Institute/Foundation, for cultural and historical research, by Dr. Omer Salim Khan, Director for the Northern region.

My interest in the culture, history, and their relationship to the geography of the region is long-standing.

***

My primary research interests remain medieval and renaissance drama in England. Recent projects have included:

• 
  The representation and significance of all-female networks in medieval biblical plays.
• 
  The theatricality of female characters in early Tudor drama. Forthcoming in the Ludus series in Tudor Interludes edited by Dr. Peter Happé.
• 
  A consideration of the symptoms of ergot poisoning in the depiction of Caliban’s suffering in The Tempest. Published as Prospero’s Art: Magic or Mycotoxicology? in TLS April 23 2004.
• 
  The literary lineage of the Antichrist and his presence in The Tempest. Published as ‘Giants and Enemies of God: The Relationship between Caliban and Prospero from the Perspective of Insular Literary Tradition’, Shakespeare Survey, 59 (2006), 239–253.

This article will also be available in hard copy and online from September 2008 in Shakespeare Criticism Vol 115, SC-115. For more information visit www.gale.cengage.com

• 
  I am continuing my research into the political significance of The Tempest.
• 
  Other current research interests:
• Anglo-Saxon and medievalism. I am revising an article looking at the significance of the language of grief in Anglo-Saxon poetry and its reuse in modern fantasy.
• 
  For many years I have been committed to facilitating learning for mature students, especially learning for pleasure and personal development. To this end I run Saturday afternoon Reading Groups in Southampton on Shakespeare, Poetry, and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. I hope to expand on this commitment in the near future.

• Most recently I ran a short course of 6 weekly meetings on Anglo-Saxon Literature as the first part of a series entitled English in the Afternoon. I am curently planning the second in the series, which will look at Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
  

• All my work for the Reading Groups is voluntary.

• I am currently editing the CMRC newsletter (CMRC = The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Culture, School of Humanities, University of Southampton, UK)