Penelope Geng
Associate Professor, English and Creative Writing
Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama, British Literature c.1500-1700, Law and Literature, Religion and Literature; Affect and Emotions, Disability Studies, History of Medicine, Race and Property Law
Old Main 202
[email protected]
she/her/hers
Penelope Geng is associate professor of English specializing in early modern literature, Shakespeare, law and literature, religion, and disability. Her book (2021) argues for the vital work of drama in preserving a culture of participatory justice, communal care, and lay magistracy at a time when the law was becoming professionalized.
Her next project, provisionally titled Disabled by Law traces the legacy of seventeenth-century property law on modern notions of able-bodied citizenship鈥攁nd the surprising ways that ideology was (and continues to be) contested by the literary imagination. She is the co-founder of , a Twin Cities-based research workshop devoted to sharing knowledge about disability theory, aesthetics, and pedagogy. At Macalester, she teaches classes such as 鈥Shakespeare,鈥 鈥淥nce upon a Crime鈥 (an introduction to law and literature), 鈥淢ajor British Authors,鈥 鈥淒isability in the English Renaissance,鈥 and 鈥Demonology.鈥
Areas of Study
- Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama
- British Literature c.1500-1700
- Law and Literature
- Religion and Literature
- Affect and Emotions
- Disability Studies
- History of Medicine
- Race and Property Law
Professor Geng will be on leave for the Academic Year 2025-2026
Books
Shakespeare, William.听Richard II. Cambridge Shakespeare Editions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Expected completion in 2028)
Communal Justice in Shakespeare鈥檚 England: Drama, Law, and Emotion. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021.
Selected Essays and Articles
Co-authored with Andrew Bozio. 鈥淲hiteness as Knowingness: Race and Intellectual Disability in Shakespeare鈥檚听Othello.鈥 Ed. Alice Equestri.听Shaping Intellectual Disabilities in Early Modern Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2025. 263-85.
鈥淭he Mad Butler of Gray鈥檚 Inn: Service, Mental Disability, and the Limits of Institutional Care,鈥 Ed. Jackie Watson and Emma Rhatigan.听Mapping the Early Modern Inns of Court: Law, Literature, and听Identity. Cham: Palgrave, 2025. 99-119.
鈥淎gainst White Cripistemology: Seeing Race and Global Disability in听King Lear.鈥 Ed. Katherine听Schaap Williams.听Shakespearean International Yearbook: Disability Performance and Global听Shakespeare. New York: Routledge, 2024. 160-82.
鈥淒ressing to Transgress: Aesthetic Matching, Historical Costumers of Color, and the Restorying听of Institutional Spaces.鈥 Situating Shakespeare Pedagogy in US Higher Education: Social Justice and Institutional Contexts. Ed. Marissa Greenberg and Elizabeth Williamson. Edinburgh University Press. 2024. 126-43. Open access:听.
鈥淭rial by Jury in Early Modern England.鈥 The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Renaissance World. Ed. Kristen Poole: topics ed. Wendy Hyman. 2023. Published here:
“The English Inns of Court.” The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Renaissance World. Ed. Kristen Poole; topics ed. Wendy Hyman. 2023. Published here:
鈥淛urisprudence by Aphorisms: Francis Bacon and the 鈥楿ses鈥 of Small Forms.鈥 Law, Culture and the Humanities. 18.3 (2022). First published Jan. 31, 2019.听听
鈥淥n Judges and the Art of Judicature: Shakespeare鈥檚 Henry IV, Part 2.鈥 Studies in Philology 114.1 (2017): 97-123.
鈥淏efore the Right to Remain Silent: The Examinations of Anne Askew and Elizabeth Young.鈥 The Sixteenth Century Journal 43.3 (2012): 667-679.
鈥溾楬e Only Talks鈥: Arruntius and the Formation of Interpretive Communities in Ben Jonson鈥檚 Sejanus.鈥 The Ben Jonson Journal 18.1 (2011): 126-140.
Selected Book Reviews
Loftis, Sonya Freeman.听Shakespeare and Disability Studies.听Oxford Shakespeare Topics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.听Renaissance Quarterly听76, no. 2 (2023): 797-99. doi:10.1017/rqx.2023.298.
Katherine Schaap Williams. Unfixable Forms: Disability, Performance, and the Early Modern English Theater. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021. Modern Philology. Published here:
Winston, Jessica.听Lawyers at Play: Literature, Law, and Politics at the Early Modern Inns of Court, 1558-1581. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.听The American Historical Review 129:2 (2024):837鈥8.听.
Selected Fellowships and Grants
The Huntington Library, Louise Ritchie Fellowship, 2025.
ACMRS RaceB4Race Second Book Institute, 2023 and 2025.
Racial Justice Project Fund for “Uncommon Bodies” Symposium, 日韩精品, 2023-24.
Paul O. Kristeller Fellowship, Renaissance Society of America, 2022.
UMN Center for Premodern Studies, Research Workshop Grant for 鈥淯ncommon Bodies鈥 (year 1, 2, 3, and 4) with Jennifer Row (French), 2019-present. Twitter @uncommonbodies.
Macalester, Itzkowitz Solon Warde Grant for Course Development, 鈥淥nce upon a Crime,鈥 2020.
The Huntington Library, Francis Bacon Foundation Fellowship, 2019.
The Huntington Library, Francis Bacon Foundation Fellowship, 2014.
Mellon Academy for Advanced Study in the Renaissance Research Fellowship, 2014.
USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute, Dissertation Fellowship, 2012-13.
Links
Personal Website: 听
Education
BA (Honors) in English: University of Toronto
MA in Humanities: University of Chicago
MA in English: University of Southern California
PhD in English: University of Southern California