Penelope Geng

Associate Professor, English
Early modern English literature and culture; Shakespeare; sixteenth- and seventeenth-century drama, poetry, and prose; law and literature; formalism; affect studies; disability studies.

Old Main, 202
651-696-6641

she/her/hers

Penelope Geng teaches courses on early modern literature, Shakespeare, demonology, law and literature, and disability. Her book Communal Justice in Shakespeare’s England: Drama, Law, and Emotion (University of Toronto Press, forthcoming) argues for the vital work of drama in preserving a culture of participatory justice, communal care, and lay magistracy at a time when law was becoming increasingly professionalized. Her next project, provisionally titled Precarious Ability, investigates the rise of ablenationalism in seventeenth-century law and literature. 

Areas of Study

  • Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama
  • British Literature c.1500-1700
  • Law and Literature
  • Religion and Literature; the Reformation 
  • Affect and Emotions
  • Disability 

Spring 2021 Courses

  • ENGL 194-01: Once Upon a Crime (Mod 3)
  • ENGL 401-01:  Projects in Literary Research (Mod 3)
  • ENGL 200-01: Major Medieval and Renaissance British Writers (Mod 4)

Publications

Book

Communal Justice in Shakespeare’s England: Drama, Law, and Emotion. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021.

Articles

“Jurisprudence by Aphorisms: Francis Bacon and the ‘Uses’ of Small Forms.” Law, Culture and the Humanities. First published Jan. 31, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1743872119826455. Print version forthcoming.

“On Judges and the Art of Judicature: Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 2.” Studies in Philology 114.1 (2017): 97-123.

“Before the Right to Remain Silent: The Examinations of Anne Askew and Elizabeth Young.” The Sixteenth Century Journal 43.3 (2012): 667-679.

“‘He Only Talks’: Arruntius and the Formation of Interpretive Communities in Ben Jonson’sSejanus.” The Ben Jonson Journal 18.1 (2011): 126-140. 

Encyclopedia Articles

“Trial by Jury.” Routledge Encyclopedia of the Renaissance World. Gen. ed. Kristen Poole: topics ed. Wendy Hyman. (Forthcoming).

“John Marston” (3000 words), “Sir John Davies” (1000 words), “John Dowland” (1000 words). TheEncyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature. 3 Vols. Gen. ed. Garrett Sullivan and Alan Stewart; assoc. ed. Rebecca Lemon, Nicholas McDowell, and Jennifer Richards. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

Reviews

“Love, Law, and Literature,” essay-review of Regina Schwartz’s Loving Justice, Living Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Syndicate, https://syndicate.network/symposia/literature/loving-justice-living-shakespeare/. 7 July 2019.

Book Rev. of The Work of Form: Poetics and Materiality in Early Modern Culture. Ed. Ben Burton andElizabeth Scott-Baumann. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Renaissance Quarterly 71.1 (2017): 401-2.

Book Rev. of Marissa Greenberg. Metropolitan Tragedy: Genre, Justice, and the City in Early Modern England. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015. Renaissance Quarterly 69.3 (2016): 1188–1190.

Theater Rev. of The Changeling. Thomas Middleton and William Rowley. Director Joe Hill-Gibbins. Young Vic, London. 25 Feb. 2012. Cahiers Élisabéthains 81 (2012): 57-8.

Fellowships & Grants

  • Research Workshop Grant, Andrew W. Mellon Consortium for the Study of the Pre-Modern World, U of Minnesota, “Uncommon Bodies,” 2020-2021.
  • Research Workshop Grant, Andrew W. Mellon Consortium for the Study of the Pre-Modern World, U of Minnesota, “Uncommon Bodies,” 2019-20.
  • Fund for the Advancement of Collaborative Teaching (FACT), Macalester College, 2019.
  • Wallace Scholarly Activities Grant, Macalester College, Fall 2018.
  • Francis Bacon Foundation Research Fellowship, Huntington Library, 2018/9.
  • Francis Bacon Foundation Research Fellowship, Huntington Library, 2014.
  • Andrew W. Mellon Academy for Advanced Study in the Renaissance Fellowship, 2014.
  • Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Graduate School, USC, 2013-14.
  • Dissertation Fellowship, Early Modern Studies Institute, USC-Huntington Library, 2012-13.

Links

Website https://penelopegeng.wordpress.com/

Education

BA (Honors) in English: University of Toronto

MA in Humanities: University of Chicago

MA in English: University of Southern California

PhD in English: University of Southern California