Early modern literature and cultural history, literature and the land, literature and politics, satire, travel-writing, space and nationhood, popular literature, interdisciplinary approaches to Renaissance texts, Renaissance drama.
Professor of Renaissance Studies
My research is in the field of early modern English literature and culture. Although I have pursued different projects throughout my career, one consistent aim has been to combine literary and historical modes of analysis.
My first monograph, God Speed the Plough: The Representation of Agrarian England, 1500-1660 (Cambridge, 1996) examined a wide range of texts responding, in different ways, to unprecedented processes of social and economic upheaval. (For further information, see http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521524660 ) My second monograph, Literature, Satire and the Early Stuart State (Cambridge, 2004), argues that satire, as the preeminent literary mode of discrimination and stigmatization, helped people to make sense of the confusing political conditions of the early Stuart era (For further information, see http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521814952 ).
Both books, since they have been based on extensive primary research, have led to associated collaborative editorial projects: the former producing The Writing of Rural England, 1500-1800 (Basingstoke, 2003; see http://www.palgrave.com/products/Catalogue.aspx?is=1-4039-1276-9) ; and the latter producing ‘Early Stuart Libels: an edition of poetry from manuscript sources,' ed. Alastair Bellany and Andrew McRae, Early Modern Literary Studies Text Series I (2005) http://purl.oclc.org/emls/texts/libels/.
I am also the author of Renaissance Drama (London, 2003), a contribution to the Arnold 'Contexts' series, which aims to introduce readers to a contextual study of literary texts.
My current research projects include a book-length study of literature and domestic travel in early modern England.
