Teaching Interests:
My teaching interests
primarily focus on early modern and environmental literature. At Salem
State
College I teach undergraduate surveys of Shakespeare, British
Literature, and Classics of Western Literature along with composition
courses and special topics within early modern literature. At the
graduate level, I teach special topics in Shakespeare (such as
Shakespearean Geography and Forests in Shakespeare) as well as a
seminar on John Milton.
In the
past I have also taught courses on environmental literature and links
between
Shakespeare and contemporary novels.
Research
Interests:
My forthcoming book,
The Sylvan Pastoral Nation: Nature,
History and Genre in Early Modern England (Duquesne University
Press), focuses on
pastoral
literature in early modern
England
as an emerging form of nature writing. In particular, I analyze what
happens
when pastoral writing is set in forests--what I term sylvan pastoral.
During
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries forests and woodlands played an
instrumental role in the formation of individual and national
identities in
England.
Although environmentalism as we know it did not yet exist, persistent
fears of
timber shortages led to a larger anxiety about the status of forests.
More
important, forests were dynamic and contested sites of largely
undeveloped
spaces where the poor would migrate in a time of rising population when
land
became scarce. This is a place where the poor would go, but it also was
a
playground for monarchs and aristocrats where they indulged in the
symbolically
rich sport of hunting. I argue that conventional pastoral literature
transforms
when writers use it to represent and define forests and the multiple
ways in
which English society saw these places. I am particularly interested in
exploring the ways in which cultures turn confusing spaces into known
places
and how this process is shaped by nature, history, gender and class. I
explore how these issues play out in
familiar works
by Shakespeare, such as
A Midsummer Night's Dream,
The
Merry Wives of
Windsor, and
As You Like It, Andrew Marvell's "Upon
Appleton
House," John
Milton's
Mask
and
Paradise Lost,
as well as lesser known prose works of the English Revolution, such as
James
Howell's
Dendrologia
and John Evelyn's
Sylva.
I also am
exploring the links between nature and architecture
during
the early modern period. In addition to the book, I have published
articles on Shakespeare and
Milton
that appear in
Milton
Studies,
Texas
Studies in Literature and Language,
English
Literary Renaissance, and
Renaissance
Ecology: Imagining Eden in Milton's England, ed. by Ken Hiltner.
I have also written on issues important to the academy in
Profession
2006.
For
More Information:
How to Contact Me:
Email:
jeffrey.theis@salemstate.edu
Address:
Jeffrey Theis
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Salem
State
College
352
Lafayette
Street
Salem,
Massachusetts
01970-5353
Phone: 978-542-6845
