My ‘Must Reads’

My current research incorporates elements of performance studies, sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, and theories surrounding affect and historiography. As such, many of my favorite books are linked to these interests. Below are some of my favorite texts:

Dark Matter: Invisibility in Drama, Theatre, and Performance by Andrew Sofer

Cruel Optimism by Lauren Berlant

Bodily Citations: Religion and Judith Butler edited by Ellen T. Armour and Susan M. St. Ville

Dispensationalism Before Darby: Seventeenth Century and Eighteenth Century English Apocalypticism by William C. Watson

The Tragedy of Mariam by Elizabeth Cary

What’s the Use? On the Uses of Use by Sara Ahmed

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

“Hell House Performance and the Structures of Religious Feeling” by Ann Pellegrini

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro

Feeling the Future at Christian End-Time Performances by Jill Stevenson

Heretic Queen: Queen Elizabeth I and the Wars of Religion by Susan Ronald

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Bewitched and Bedeviled: A Cognitive Approach to Embodiment in Early English Possession by Kirsten C. Uszkalo

“The Disgusting Apostle and Queer Affect Between Epistles and Audiences” by Joseph A. Marchal

Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens by Jane Dunn

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599 by James Shapiro

King Lear by William Shakespeare

The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, Her Pirate Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire by Susan Ronald

“The Future Birth of the Affective Fact: The Political Ontology of Threat” by Brian Massumi

The Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe

The Sultan and the Queen: The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam by Jerry Brotton

The Senses and the English Reformation by Matthew Milner

Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare

Affect Theory, Shame, and Christian Formation by Stephanie N. Arel

The Scandal of the Speaking Body: Don Juan with J.L. Austin, or Seduction in Two Languages by Shoshana Felman

Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights by Robin Bernstein

Performance Affects: Applied Theatre and the End of Effect by James Thompson

Affective Intensities and Evolving Horror Films: From Found Footage to Virtual Reality by Adam Daniel

Affective Connections: Towards a New Materialist Politics of Sympathy by Dorota Golánska

Britain, the Bible, and Balfour: Mandate for a Jewish State, 1530-1917 by Jonathan Immanuel