Publications

Throughout her reign, Elizabeth I and her supporters used biblical analogies to perpetuate the Queen’s claim to be England’s providential Protestant monarch. While Elizabeth’s parallels with various biblical figures—including Deborah, Esther, Judith, David, Solomon, and Daniel—have all received varying levels of attention in the scholarship, this is the first analysis of how biblical analogy functioned as a religio-political tool for Elizabeth across her reign. Taking both a chronological and thematic approach, this book addresses this gap by analyzing Elizabeth and her supporters’ use of the Old Testament to provide justification for decisions (or the lack thereof), to offer counsel to the Queen, and to vindicate both female kingship and the royal supremacy. It argues that biblical analogies were a vital component of Elizabethan royal iconography, and that their widespread use demonstrates their potency as a tool for legitimizing and sustaining her power.

This book examines the emergence of the queen consort in medieval England, beginning with the pre-Conquest era and ending with death of Margaret of France, second wife of Edward I, in 1307. Though many of the figures in this volumes are well known, such as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Eleanor of Castille, the chapters here are unique in the equal consideration given to the tenures of the lesser known consorts, including: Adeliza of Louvain, second wife of Henry I; Margaret of France, wife of Henry the Young King; and even Isabella of Gloucester, the first wife of King John. These innovative and thematic biographies highlight the evolution of the office of the queen and the visible roles that consorts played, which were integral to the creation of the identity of early English monarchy. This volume and its companions reveal the changing nature of English consortship from the Norman Conquest to today.

This book examines the lives and tenures of the consorts of the Plantagenet dynasty during the later Middle Ages, encompassing two major conflicts—the Hundred Years’ War and the Wars of the Roses. The figures in this volume include well-known consorts such as the “She Wolves” Isabella of France and Margaret of Anjou, as well as queens who are often overlooked, such as Philippa of Hainault and Joan of Navarre. These innovative and authoritative biographies bring a fresh approach to the consorts of this period—challenging negative perceptions created by complex political circumstances and the narrow expectations of later writers, and demonstrating the breadth of possibilities in later medieval queenship. Their conclusions shed fresh light on both the politics of the day and the wider position of women in this age. This volume and its companions reveal the changing nature of English consortship from the Norman Conquest to today.

Reviewed by Michelle Beer in Royal Studies Journal, 11.1 (2024):
“the volume ... is both a useful and necessary introduction to the now substantial body of scholarship on English queenship. ... That this volume presents new perspectives on these events when told from the point of view of English queens is a compelling argument for the importance of queenship studies as a whole. ... As an introduction to queenship during this period and recent scholarship, the biographical chapters will be useful to scholars looking to begin or brush up their learning about medieval queens. For those looking to pursue the topic further, the themes, connections, and arguments ... might serve to provoke new lines of inquiry and inspire the next generation of queenship studies.”

Reviewed by Michele Seah in Parergon, 40.2 (2023):
“the generally excellent quality of its biographical chapters ... [mean] this volume and the English Consorts: Power, Influence, and Dynasty series are a most welcome addition to royal studies.”

This book examines the lives and tenures of the consorts of the Hanoverian, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Windsor monarchs from 1727 to the present. Some of the consorts examined in this volume—such as Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, consort to George VI—are well known while others, including Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, consort to William IV, are more obscure. These innovative and authoritative biographies bring a fresh approach to the consorts of this period, revealing their lasting influence on the monarchy. In addition to covering a period that has seen the development of constitutional monarchy and increased media scrutiny of the whole royal family, this volume also looks to the future of the British monarchy, suggesting ways that future consorts can learn from the example of their predecessors. This volume and its companions reveal the changing nature of British consortship from the Norman Conquest to today.

Reviewed by Amy-Jane Humphries in Royal Studies Journal, 11.1 (2024):
“It is a highly valuable collection, one which has broken ground for future research in eminently interesting and often understudied consorts.”

This book examines the lives and tenures of all the consorts of the Tudor and Stuart monarchs of England between 1485 and 1714, as well as the wives of the two Lords Protector during the Commonwealth. The figures in Tudor and Stuart Consorts are both incredibly familiar—especially the six wives of Henry VIII—and exceedingly unfamiliar, such as George of Denmark, the husband of Queen Anne. These innovative and authoritative biographies recognise the important role consorts played in a period before constitutional monarchy: in addition to correcting popular assumptions that are based on limited historical evidence, the chapters provide a fuller picture of the role of consort that goes beyond discussions of exceptionalism and subversion. This volume and its companions reveal the changing nature of English consortship from the Norman Conquest to today.

Reviewed by Conor Byrne in Royal Studies Journal, 10.2 (2023):
“Tudor and Stuart Consorts is a handsomely produced study of the careers of fifteen consorts between 1485 and 1714 and deserves attention from scholars seeking fresh perspectives of these individuals based on solid research.”

This collection examines some of the people, places, and plays at the edge of early modern English drama. Recent scholarship has begun to think more critically about the edge, particularly in relation to the canon and canonicity. This book demonstrates that the people and concepts long seen as on the edge of early modern English drama made vital contributions both within the fictive worlds of early modern plays, and without, in the real worlds of playmakers, theaters, and audiences. The book engages with topics such as child actors, alterity, sexuality, foreignness, and locality to acknowledge and extend the rich sense of playmaking and all its ancillary activities that have emerged over the last decade. The essays by a global team of scholars bring to life people and practices that flourished on the edge, manifesting their importance to both early modern audiences, and to current readers and performers.

Four hundred years after William Shakespeare’s death, his works continue to not only fill playhouses around the world, but also be adapted in various forms for consumption in popular culture, including in film, television, comics and graphic novels, and digital media. Drawing on theories of play and adaptation, Playfulness in Shakespearean Adaptations demonstrates how the practices of Shakespearean adaptations are frequently products of playful, and sometimes irreverent, engagements that allow new ‘Shakespeares’ to emerge, revealing Shakespeare’s ongoing impact in popular culture. Significantly, this collection explores the role of play in the construction of meaning in Shakespearean adaptations—adaptations of both the works of Shakespeare, and of Shakespeare the man—and contributes to the growing scholarly interest in playfulness both past and present. The chapters in Playfulness in Shakespearean Adaptations engage with the diverse ways that play is used in Shakespearean adaptations on stage, screen, and page, examining how these adaptations draw out existing humour in Shakespeare’s works, the ways that play is used as a pedagogical aid to help explain complex language, themes, and emotions found in Shakespeare’s works, and more generally how play and playfulness can make Shakespeare ‘relatable,’ ‘relevant,’ and entertaining for successive generations of audiences and readers.

Reviewed by Jennifer E. Nicholson in Parergon 38, no. 2 (2021):
“The range covered in this collection is extensive ... Overall, the collection offers thoughtful and wide-ranging new insights into the concepts of play and irreverence in Shakespearean adaptations for readers old and new.”

Reviewed by Kerreen Ely-Harper in The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture 11, nos. 1 & 2 (2022):
“Playfulness in Shakespearean Adaptations promises to be a useful and valuable resource for Shakespeare aficionados, scholars, creative practitioners, students and educators. Through a crafted and provocative curation, readers are offered a diverse range of case studies and critical readings through the lens of playful ‘irreverence’. This new publication gives us cause to re-visit, acknowledge and celebrate a Shakespeare who, by way of proof with the ‘long history’ of adaptations and continuing legacy, is always dying but never quite dead.”

Women on the Edge in Early Modern Europe examines the lives of women whose gender impeded the exercise of their personal, political, and religious agency, with an emphasis on the conflict that occurred when they crossed the edges society placed on their gender. Many of the women featured in this collection have only been afforded cursory scholarly focus, or the focus has been isolated to a specific, (in)famous event. This collection redresses this imbalance by providing comprehensive discussions of the women’s lives, placing the matter that makes them known to history within the context of their entire life. Focusing on women from different backgrounds—such as Marie Meurdrac, the French chemist; Anna Trapnel, the Fifth Monarchist and prophetess; and Cecilia of Sweden, princess, margravine, countess, and regent—this collection brings together a wide range of scholars from a variety of disciplines to bring attention to these previously overlooked women.

Reviewed by Elisa Oh in Early Modern Women 14.2 (Spring 2020):
“Women on the Edge in Early Modern Europe ... challenges readers to focus their attention on women who occupy material and ideological spaces defined as ‘the edge’ ... Spanning two and a half centuries (ca. 1457–ca. 1701), this collection attends to women who have been little studied or who have been studied primarily for one, narrow ‘(in)famous event’ (17). Such critical approaches that intentionally look away from the ‘center’ of early modern European cultures ... are an energizing way to recover and analyze early modern women’s intersectional experiences. ... Undeniably wide-reaching, this collection ... will be of interest and particular use to interdisciplinary early modern scholars of gender, European history, politics, the English Interregnum, monarchy, and literature.”

Reviewed by Jessica L. Malay in English Historical Review 135, no. 577 (December 2020):
“This collection of essays provides particular insights into women living on a variety of margins and their attempts to construct mechanisms to cope and prosper, to survive, or at least give their deaths alternative meaning. The essays encourage readers to consider the challenges the women present to more established modes of understanding the past and its relationship to the present.”

Reviewed by Britt Eyre-Mitchell in Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 20.3 (Summer 2020):
“In Women on the Edge in Early Modern Europe, Lisa Hopkins and Aidan Norrie present a series of essays that begin to break up the parched soil of long-neglected early modern ‘women on the edge’ to make way for future scholars to plow, plant, and grow new research. ... The anthology makes a strong case for continued primary-source research into secondary and tertiary women of the early modern period who have previously been eclipsed by women holding primary roles in society as well as men who played both central and secondary roles. It also makes a case for more expansive coverage of women and their influence in even superficial treatments of the period. The soil has been turned, and the field, it turns out, has the potential to yield excellent fruit.”

Reviewed by Lotte Fikkers in Journal of Early Modern History 25.5 (October 2021):
“Women on the Edge seeks to write women on the margins into our history. This includes women who were marginalized at the time, as well as those who have been ignored by scholarship, despite their cultural, political, and professional contributions ... the contributors make a good case for showing why these women ought to be brought to the center of our attention, rather than remain delegated to the margins to which they were assigned during their lifetime ... The edition as a whole, then, illustrates the important role scholars have in centering or decentering women and their (textual) legacies.”

From Medievalism to Early-Modernism: Adapting the English Past is a collection of essays that both analyses the historical and cultural medieval and early modern past, and engages with the medievalism and early-modernism—a new term introduced in this collection—present in contemporary popular culture. By focusing on often overlooked uses of the past in contemporary culture—such as the allusions to John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi (1623) in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, and the impact of intertextual references and internet fandom on the BBC’s The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses—the contributors illustrate how cinematic, televisual, artistic, and literary depictions of the historical and cultural past not only re-purpose the past in varying ways, but also build on a history of adaptations that audiences have come to know and expect. From Medievalism to Early-Modernism: Adapting the English Past analyses the way that the medieval and early modern periods are used in modern adaptations, and how these adaptations both reflect contemporary concerns, and engage with a history of intertextuality and intervisuality.

Reviewed by Stephanie Russo in Parergon 37.1 (2020):
“From Medievalism and Early-Modernism is a useful, engaging contribution to the growing body of scholarship interested in the ways in which the medieval and early modern periods have been rethought, adapted, and reinterpreted across centuries. In its innovative and fresh approach to the material, including insights gleaned from the disciplines of film and television studies, video game studies, and fan studies, it is likely to be of significant interest to scholars working on the complex, often surprising, afterlife of the medieval and early modern periods.”