HEATHER JAMES
Departments of English and Comparative Literature
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0354
(213) 740-3740
EDUCATION
Ph. D. in Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley. English, Latin, Italian. 1991
M. A. in Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley. Latin Literature. 1986
B. A. in English and Latin Literatures, University of California. Highest honors in English literature; highest honors in Latin literature; college honors; Chancellor’s Award. 1984
APPOINTMENTS
Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Southern California. May 1998 to present.
Visiting Associate Professor in Literature, University of California San Diego, Winter Term, 2012. Hickel Endowment.
The Bread Loaf School of English, summer 2004 (Santa Fe campus) and summers 2005-7 (Vermont campus).
Visiting Associate Professor, Claremont Graduate University. Spring 2003 and 2004.
Visiting Associate Professor in Literature, Claremont McKenna College. Spring and Fall 1999.
Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature, USC. September 1995-May 1998.
Assistant Professor of English, Yale University. July 1991-June 1995.
PROFESSIONAL OFFICES
Editorial Board of Marlowe Studies: An Annual, 2010-.
Editorial Board of the Massachusetts Studies in Early Modern Culture for the University of Massachusetts Press, 2009-.
Editorial Board of Shakespeare Quarterly, 2008-13.
Editorial Board of the Shakespeare Yearbook, 2005-2010.
Board of Trustees of the Shakespeare Association of America, 2008-11. Elected office.
Executive Board of the Comparative Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Literature Division of the Modern Language Association, 2005-2009. Elected office. Chair, 2007-9.
Executive Board of the International Spenser Society, 2004-7.
AWARDS AND HONORS (selected)
Fellow in the Center for Excellence in Teaching, USC, 2003-2004, Spring 2009-2011.
Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant, Office of the Provost, University of Southern California (25k), 2007-8.
USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute Faculty Fellowship, Fall 2007.
American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, 2005-2006.
National Endowment for the Humanities Long-term Fellowship at the Folger Library, 2005-2006.
Long-term Fellowship at Henry E. Huntington Library, 2005-6 (declined).
The H. P. Kraus Fellowship at the Beinecke Library at Yale University, September 2005.
Golden Key Honors Society Honorary Fellow, 2005-present.
“Anthologize This!” USC Undergraduate Research Program Grant, Spring 2004. Directed a team of five undergraduate apprentice editors of the Norton Anthology of World Literature.
USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute Faculty Fellowship, Spring 2004.
Award for Excellence in Teaching in General Education, USC, 2001.
The Arnold L. and Lois S. Graves Prize for Teaching in the Humanities in the State of California, 2000.
Innovative Teaching Grant for Teaching Renaissance Drama in General Education, Fall 2000.
Simpson Research Grant in the Humanities, University of Southern California, 1998.
Griswold Research Grants, Yale University, summer 1992 and 1995.
Morse Fellowship, Yale University, 1994-1995.
The Sarai Ribicoff Award for Undergraduate Teaching at Yale College, 1994. Awarded to a junior faculty member in the Humanities on the basis of student and faculty nominations.
Andrew Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, 1984-6 and1990-1.
PUBLICATIONS
Books
Shakespeare's Troy: Drama, Politics, and the Translation of Empire (Cambridge University Press, 1997, reprinted 1999/2000). Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture. Stephen Orgel, series editor. One of twenty-four scholarly books on “Medieval & Renaissance” literature selected for Choice’s Outstanding Academic Titles, 1998-2002.
Norton Anthology of Western Literature (W.W. Norton & Co). Gen. Eds., Maynard Mack and Sarah Lawall. Editors: Heather James, Lee Patterson, Patricia Meyer Spacks, and William Thalmann. 7th ed. 1999; 8th ed. 2005.
Norton Anthology of World Literature (W.W. Norton & Co., 2001). General Editor: Sarah Lawall.
Book in Progress
Taking Liberties: Ovid in Renaissance Poetry and Political Thought. The book uncovers the relationship of the Roman love poet Ovid to the freedom of speech in Renaissance poetry and political thought. Chapters on commentaries, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Sandys, and Milton and 17th-century women writers.
Articles and Chapters in Books
“Classical genres: epic, tragedy, comedy satire,” article entry for the The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare, gen. ed. Bruce R. Smith. Forthcoming. 6000 words.
“Flower Power,” Editor’s Choice of The Spenser Review 44.2 (Fall 2014), online. 5000 words. Peer-reviewed.
“Ben Jonson’s Light Reading,” in John Miller and Carole E. Newlands, eds. A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014): 246-261.
“The First English Printed Commonplace Books and the Rise of the Common Reader,” Formal Matters: Reading the Materials of English Renaissance Literature, eds. Allison Deutermann and András Kiséry (Manchester University Press, 2013): 15-33. Peer-reviewed.
Reviewed by The Spenser Review http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/spenseronline/review/volume-44/442/reviews/deutermann-and-kisery-formal-matters/
“Coming of Age in Shakespeare,” Coming of Age, ed. Kent Baxter (Ipswitch, MA, 2012). Salem Press Critical Insights Series, 2012): 108-125. Peer-reviewed.
“Shakespeare’s Classical Plays,” Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, eds. Margreta de Grazia and Stanley Wells (Cambridge University Press, 2010): 153-167.
“Coriolanus: A Modern Perspective,” in Coriolanus, eds. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. Folger Shakespeare Edition (Washington Square Press, 2009): 297-308.
“Ovid in Renaissance English Literature,” in the Blackwell Companion to Ovid, ed. Peter E. Knox (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009): 423-41.
“Shakespeare, the Classics, and the Forms of Authorship.” Forum on “The Return of the Author,” Shakespeare Studies 36 (2008): 80-89. Peer-reviewed.
“Shakespeare and Classicism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Poetry, ed. Patrick Cheney (Cambridge University Press, 2007): 202-220.
“The Poet’s Toys: Christopher Marlowe and the Liberties of Erotic Elegy,” Modern Language Quarterly 67:1 (2006): 103-127. Peer-reviewed.
“Shakespeare’s Learned Heroines in Ovid’s Schoolroom,” in Charles Martindale and A. B. Taylor, eds., Shakespeare and the Classics (Cambridge University Press, 2004): 66-85.
“Ovid and the Question of Politics in Early Modern England,” English Literary History (ELH), 70:2 (2003): 343-73. Peer-reviewed.
“Royal Jokes and Sovereign Mystery in Castiglione and Marguerite de Navarre,” Modern Language Quarterly 64:4 (December 2003): 399-425. Peer-reviewed.
“Dido’s Ear: Tragedy and the Politics of Response,” Shakespeare Quarterly 52:3 (Autumn 2001): 360-82. Peer-reviewed.
“The Politics of Display and the Anamorphic Subjects of Antony and Cleopatra,” Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s Late Tragedies, ed. Susanne L. Wofford (Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, 1996): 208-34.
“Milton's Eve, Romance, and Ovid,” Journal of Comparative Literature 45:2 (Spring 1993): 121-45. Peer-reviewed.
“Cultural Disintegration in Titus Andronicus: Mutilating Titus, Vergil, and Rome,” in Themes in Drama, vol. 13, ed. James Redmond (Cambridge University Press, 1991): 123-40. Peer-reviewed.
Short Pieces
Shakespeare Encyclopedia: Life, Works, World, and Legacy, general editor Patricia Parker (Greenwood Press). Entries on “Bishops Ban of 1599”; “Baldassare Castiglione”; “Dido, Queen of Carthage”; “Translation of Empire and Studies”; and “Troy Legend.”
Work Completed
“An Aethiopian Sodomite in Paris: the End of Romance in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso.” Under submission.
Reprinted Essays and Chapters
“Cultural Disintegration in Titus Andronicus: Mutilating Titus, Vergil, and Rome,” in Shakespearean Criticism 94, ed. Michelle Lee (Thomson-Gale, 2006). Reprinted from Shakespeare’s Troy.
“Ovid and the Question of Politics in Early Modern England.” Images of Matter: Essays on British Literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Yvonne Bruce (University of Delaware Press, 2005): 92-123. Reprinted from ELH.
“Tricks We Play On The Dead.” Shakespeare’s Problem Plays: All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida. Palgrave New Casebooks series, ed. Simon Barker (Macmillan Palgrave, 2004). Reprinted from Shakespeare’s Troy.
“Troilus and Cressida.” Shakespearean Criticism 71, ed. Michelle Lee (Thomson-Gale, 2002). Reprinted from Shakespeare’s Troy.
“Cultural Disintegration in Titus Andronicus: Mutilating Titus, Vergil, and Rome,” in Titus Andronicus: Critical Essays, ed. Philip Kolin (New York and London: Garland, 1995): 287-303.
Articles in Progress
“The Graveyard and the Frontier: Hamlet among the Buffaloes.”
Contracted Essays and Other Work
The New Riverside Shakespeare: The Tragedies: Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and Othello, gen. ed. Douglas Bruster.
“Shakespeare’s Juliet and Ovid’s Myths of Girlhood,” Childhood, Education, and the Stage in Early Modern England, eds. Deanne Williams and Richard Preiss. Under contract from Cambridge UP.
“Classical Sources.” Shakespeare In Our Time: the SAA 2016 volume, eds. Dympna Callaghan and Suzanne Gossett. Arden Publishing and the SAA. Due January 16, 2015
Book Reviews
Liz Oakley-Brown, Ovid and the Cultural Politics of Translation in Early Modern England (Ashgate, 2006). Modern Philology 106.1 (2008).
Andrew Hadfield, Shakespeare and Republicanism (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005). Shakespeare Quarterly 58.1 (2007): 127-30.
Syrithe Pugh, Spenser and Ovid (Aldershot, Hants, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2005). The Spenser Review 37.3 (2006): 10-12.
Jeffrey Knapp, Shakespeare’s Tribe: Church, Nation, and Theater in Renaissance England (Chicago UP, 2002). Renaissance Quarterly (2004): 369-370.
A. B. Taylor, ed., Shakespeare’s Ovid: The Metamorphoses in the Plays and Poems (Cambridge UP, 2000) and M. L. Stapleton, ed., Thomas Heywood’s Art of Love: The First Complete English Translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria (U of Michigan P, 2000). RQ (2002): 59-61.
Houston Diehl, Staging Reform, Reforming the Stage: Protestantism and Popular Theater in Early Modern England (Cornell UP, 1997). Shakespeare Studies, vol. 26 (1998): 343-8.
Pauline Kiernan, Shakespeare’s Theory of Drama (Cambridge UP, 1996). Modern Philology 96 (1998): 229-33.
John Watkins, The Specter of Dido: Spenser and Virgilian Epic (Yale UP, 1995). Comparative Literature (1997).
KEYNOTES, PLENARIES, AND INVITED TALKS
“Shakespeare’s Juliet and Ovid’s Myths of Girlhood, “Shakespeare’s Girls,” a semi-plenary paper session of the Shakespeare Association of America. Vancouver, B.C. April 1-4, 2015.
Hugh MacLean Lecture, International Spenser Society. MLA. Vancouver, BC. January10, 2015.
“Shakespeare's Italian loves: Boccaccio vs. Petrarch.” A Boccaccian Renaissance, a Joint UC-Berkeley and Stanford University Conference. Organizers: Albert R. Ascoli and David Lummis. October 24-26, 2013.
“Between Worlds: Ovid in Colonial America and Caroline England.” Departments of Classics and English Literature. Texas Tech University. April 13, 2012.
“Bison Hamlet.” Early Modern British History Seminar of the Huntington Library. San Marino. December 3, 2011.
“Hamlet and Species Extinction.” Early Modern Colloquium, Northwestern University. October 20, 2011.
The Future of Literary Studies, 1500-1800. Annual Conference of the Early Modern Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. March 11-12, 2011.
“A Double Stranger: Sandys’ Ovid, 1625-1642.” Early Modern Translation: Theory, History, Practice. Chairs: Karen Newman and Jane Tylus. Folger Library, Washington, D.C. March 4-5, 2011.
“Bison Hamlet.” The Next English Renaissance. Department of English. University of Colorado-Boulder. September 25, 2010.
“Close Reading Without Readings.” Invited Chair for Stephen Booth. SAA. Chicago, April 3, 2010.
“Foreword: Politics and Plays” and “Retrospect/Prospect.” Representing Politics on Shakespeare’s Stage. The Huntington Library, co-chaired with A.R. Braunmuller. September 25-26, 2009.
“Commonplaces, Inventories, and the Forms of Authorship.” Forms of Early Modern Writing Colloquium. Columbia Rare Books Library. Columbia University. April 25, 2008.
“The Liberty of Speech in Shakespeare’s England.” Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Cal State-Long Beach. October 24, 2007.
“Othello, Plutarch, Foucault.” Claremont Graduate University. October 1, 2007.
“Arrows from God’s Quiver: the Political Culture of Sententiae in Elizabethan Drama.” 1601: the Revolt of the Earl of Essex. Department of History, Princeton University. May 18-19, 2007.
Distinguished guest lecturer in the English Department at Reed College. April 19, 2007.
Public lecture: “Shakespeare and the Liberty of Speech.”
Seminar: “What’s Love Got to Do With It?: Paradise Lost, Revolution, and the Renaissance Ovid.”
“Sentencing Ovid.” Plenary Session, Shakespeare Association of America. San Diego, April 6, 2007.
“Ben Jonson and the Early Modern Trial of Ovid.” Folger Shakespeare Library. May 19, 2006.
“Purloined Letters and the Sources of Slander.” Columbia Early Modern Seminar. May 4, 2006.
“The Liberty of Speech in Early Modern England.” Romance Studies, Duke University. March 29, 2006.
“Ovid in Early Modern England.” University of Maryland at College Park. November 14, 2005.
“Ovid on the Margins.” Plenary address to the PAMLA. Pepperdine University. November 12, 2005.
“Metamorphoses of Faith in Seventeenth-Century England.” Transformations: 17th- and 18th-Century Religion, Texts, Cultures. Clark Library. September 30-October 1, 2005.
“‘The Ethnicke Muse’: Pagan Inspiration at Great Tew.” Colloquium on British Studies at Yale University. September 26, 2005.
“Spenser and the Gods.” St. Andrews University, Scotland. April 13, 2005.
“The Poet’s Toys, or the Political History of Elegy.” University of Pennsylvania. January 23, 2004.
“Shakespeare’s Learned Heroines in Ovid’s Schoolroom.” University of Chicago. September 22, 2003.
“An Aethiopian Sodomite in Paris: Love and License in the Orlando Furioso.” Newberry Library in Chicago. September 20, 2003.
“Rules of the Game: Royal Jests and Sovereign Mystery.” Yale University. March 7, 2002.
“Fables of Absolutism in Castiglione’s Courtier and Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron.” Princeton University. March 5, 2002.
“The Cultural Wars of Literary History.” Keynote speaker at “Icons of Change: Word and Image in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.” The Citadel. Charleston, South Carolina. Feb. 8, 2002.
“Mixing It Up: Contaminations of Form in the Renaissance.” Keynote speaker at the Graduate Student Conference at Harvard. May 12, 2000.
“Old Texts and New Problems in Early Modern Europe.” Keynote speaker at the Graduate Student Conference of the University of Oregon. January 1999.
“Spenser’s Ovid: Politics and Dalliance.” The Huntington Library. San Marino. February 22, 1997.
CONFERENCES AND PAPERS (selected)
Chair of “Shakespeare and the Meaning of the Modern Humanities.” Shakespeare Association of America. St Louis. April 11, 2014.
“Flower Power.” Invited Participant in “Reading Allegory and Poetics in Spenser’s Poetry.” Renaissance Society of America. NYC. March 29, 2014.
“The Graveyard and the Frontier: Hamlet among the Buffaloes.” Western Literature Association. Berkeley. October 12, 2013.
“Time, Verisimilitude, and the Counter-Classical Ovid.” Invited Participant in “Classicism Redux.” Chair: Lynn Enterline. SAA. Bellevue, Washington. April 8, 2011.
“Elegy and Empire in Anne Wharton’s Love’s Martyr, Or Wit Above Crowns.” RSA. Montreal, 2011. March 25, 2011.
“Aromatherapy: Political Discontent in Spenser’s Flowerbeds.” RSA. Getty Center, March 20, 2009.
“Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Coriolanus’ Wars in Moral Philosophy.” Moral Agency. Chair: Michael Bristol. SAA. Dallas, March 2008.
“Spenser’s Narcissism.” Spenser’s Useless Loves. Chair: Jeff Dolven. MLA. Chicago, 2007.
“Peregrine Words: the Violence of Translation.” Chair. MLA. Chicago, 2007.
“Spenser’s Acoustic Worlds.” Organizer and chair. MLA. Philadelphia, December 2006.
“Grace Notes.” Conference in Honor of Harry Berger, Jr. U of South Carolina. October 12-13. 2006.
“Ovid in Exile: Ben Jonson and the Liberty of Speech.” Ben Jonson Seminar. Chair: Martin Butler. SAA. Philadelphia, April 14, 2006.
“Christopher Marlowe and the Poet's Toys.” RSA. Cambridge, England, April 9, 2005
“What are the Futures of Feminism?” Chair: Carol Thomas Neely. SAA. Bermuda, March 18, 2005.
“‘And Is There Care in Heaven?” “Spenser and the Gods.” Chair: Jeffrey Knapp. MLA. Philadelphia, 2004.
Chair and Organizer of “Languages of Blood.” SAA. Speakers: Janet Adelman, Roland Greene, Alan Stewart. New Orleans, March 2004.