The stories in this project, and the story of this project, are intimately invested in creating and exploring spectral enmeshments that are poly-chronic, wonder-oriented and always more than human. The narratives I work with—found in the writings of Walter Map, Gerald of Wales, and Gervase of...
This dissertation argues that the veil was an important tool for negotiating linguistic, religious, ethnic, and gendered identities in the early modern period. Chapter 1 considers the veil as a figure for apocalypse (literally, "unveiling") in Protestant theology and in allegory, particularly as...
My dissertation examines literary encounters between England and Persia in the early modern period. English narratives about Persia from this time view the culture, the people, and the landscape through the prism of classical and medieval representations of the ancient Persian Empire. By reading...
A simple question animates this project: What did people living in early modern England think about diamonds? Put differently, what was a diamond for the English during the Tudor and Stuart reigns? This dissertation follows the travels and travails of the diamond through a variety of generically...
Postcolonialism uses stories from the colonial world to confront global audiences with ethical problems. This dissertation examines the rhetorical strategies employed by writers to organize new communities defined in terms of Postcolonialist ethics. It analyzes the limits and failures of the new...
My dissertation argues that waterscapes of the early modern period - rivers, glaciers, monsoons, and swamps - form fluid networks in which the human and nonhuman mix. Early modern writers demonstrate how the human body is intermeshed with the liquid environment. Examining works by Walter Ralegh,...
My dissertation explores how sound informs the representation of cross-cultural interactions within early modern drama and travel writing. &ldquoSounding;” implies the process of producing music or noise, but it also suggests the attempt to make meaning of what one hears. &ldquoOtherness;” in...