Carolyn Sale
Associate Professor
MA, UBC; PhD, Stanford
Supervisory and Research Interests
My research interests, diverse, focus on Shakespeare and early modern writing by women. My primary work is on early modern literature and the law, but my work extends to early modern performance theory and dramatic theory more generally; early modern conceptions of literary history, and the place of women writers within it; early modern conceptions of the ‘common’ and the popular, especially as these relate to early modern drama in general and Shakespeare’s materialist aesthetic in particular; the politics of play across Western culture, from the classical period to contemporary culture; and the ‘obscene’ as a category about representational limits. As supervisor, I welcome MA and doctoral students who wish to pursue graduate studies in any aspect of early modern literature and culture. I am also happy to serve as reader for dissertations on literature and the law, dramatic theory, or conceptions of the ‘common,’ the ‘popular,’ or ‘play’ for students working in any period of study.
Courses Taught
I regularly teach undergraduate courses in Shakespeare, early modern women’s writing, and early modern drama. Fourth-year seminars have included ‘The Shakespeare Moot Court Project’ and ‘ The Many Faces of Hamlet.’ In the Winter of 2010, I led the graduate seminar ‘Authorship, Property, Law and Early Modern Literature,’ and am currently leading the graduate seminar 'Shakespeare and the Common(s).'
Works Most Recently in Print
"Black Aeneas: race, Enligsh Literary History, and the "Barbarous" Poetics of Titus Andronicus" in Shakespeare Quarterly 62.1 (2011): 25-52.
"The Courts" in The History of British Women's Writing, Volume 2, 1500 - 1600, eds. Jennifer Summit and Caroline Bicks (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
Selected Publications
“The ‘Roman Hand’: Women, Writing and the Law in the Att.-Gen. v. Chatterton and the Letters of the Lady Arbella Stuart,” ELH 70.4 (2003): 929–961.
‘Slanderous Aesthetics and the Woman Writer: The Case of Hole v. White.’ 181 – 194 in Redefining British Theatre History, Vol. 2: From Script to Stage in Early Modern Theatre, eds. Peter Holland and Stephen Orgel (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
‘Eating Air, Feeling Smells: Hamlet’s Theory of Performance.’ Renaissance Drama 35 (2006): 145-167. Reprinted, 33–54 in Hamlet: Modern Critical Interpretations, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2009).
‘The “Amending Hand”: Hales v. Petit, Wimbish v.Tailbois, Eyston v. Studd and Equitable Action in Hamlet.’ 189–207 in The Law in Shakespeare, eds. Karen Cunningham and Constance Jordan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
“The Case of Mines and Hamlet.” 137-157 in Shakespeare and the Law, editors, Gary Watt and Paul Raffield (Hart Publishing, 2008).
Work-in-Progress
Book manuscript, "Common Properties: The Early Modern Writer and the Law, From Christopher St. German to Elizabeth Cary."