- Department, Office, or School
- Department of English
- Professor
- emailjholl@ric.edu
- phone401-456-8028
- location_onCraig-Lee Hall, 144
I joined the RIC English Department in 2013 and teach courses in Shakespeare, British literature and culture, literary and cultural theory, and film and adaptation. My research focuses primarily on Shakespeare and the ways that we make Shakespeare mean through use—whether through stage performance, film and TV adaptation, cultural appropriations, or the creative and critical work of fandom. My book, Shakespeare and Celebrity Cultures (Routledge, 2021), probes the relationship between Shakespeare and celebrity, from the celebrities of the early modern stage to the Shakespearean stars of stage and screen to digital incarnations of celebrity Shakespeare online.
Outside of teaching, I am very involved in studies abroad at RIC. I serve on the executive committee of the Shinn Study Abroad Fund and am currently serving as interim co-director of the Office of Study Abroad. In 2017, I founded the RIC English Summer in England Program, an at-RIC-and-abroad summer program that combines classroom coursework with 17 days in London and Stratford-upon-Avon. Abroad, students get to explore Shakespeare’s past and present through live performances, workshops with professional Shakespearean actors, and visits to historical and cultural sites.
RIC News Article: A Summer of Experiential Learning in Shakespeare's England
Education
Ph.D., M.Phil., City University of New York Graduate Center
M.A., Virginia Tech
B.A., James Madison University
Selected Publications
Books
Shakespeare and Celebrity Cultures. London and New York: Routledge, 2021.
Articles and Book Chapters
“‘The wonder of his time’: Richard Tarlton and the Dynamics of Early Modern Theatrical Celebrity.” Historical Social Research 32 (2019): 59-82.
“‘Now ‘mongst this flock of drunkards’: Drunk Shakespeare’s Polytemporal Theater.” Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation 11.2 (2018).
“Shakespeare Fanboys and Fangirls and the Work of Play.” The Shakespeare User: Critical and Creative Appropriations in a Networked Culture. Eds. Valerie M. Fazel and Louise Geddes. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 109-128.
“YouShakespeare: Shakespearean Celebrity 2.0.” Shakespeare/Not Shakespeare. Eds. Christy Desmet, Natalie Loper, and Jim Casey. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 203-219.
“Immortal Parts: Ghostly Renown in Shakespeare.” The Selected Papers of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference 7 (2014): 78-97. https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1045&context=spovsc
“‘If this be worth your hearing’: Theorizing Gossip on Shakespeare’s Stage.” Who Hears in Shakespeare? Auditory Worlds on Stage and Screen. Eds. Laury Magnus and Walter Cannon. Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2011. 61-82.
Courses
FYS 100 Gossip, Scandal, and Social Knowledge
FYW 100 Introduction to Academic Writing
HONR 351 Honors Colloquium
ENGL 120 Studies in Literature and Identity
ENGL 121 Studies in Literature and Nation
ENGL 122 Studies in Literature and the Canon
ENGL 123 Studies in Literature and Genre
ENGL 200 Reading Literature and Culture
ENGL 205 Backgrounds in British Literature to 1700
ENGL 300 Introduction to Theory and Criticism
ENGL 304 Queering Camelot
ENGL 305 Early Modern Bodies
ENGL 325 Film and Literature
ENGL 335 The Bible as Literature
ENGL 345 Shakesqueer
ENGL 346 Shakespeare in/as/and Performance
ENGL 350/550 Shakespeare’s England/England’s Shakespeare: A Study Abroad Course
ENGL 460 Seminar in Major Authors and Themes
ENGL 501 Literary and Cultural Theory
ENGL 530 Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson