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Roland Greene

People

Contact:

Building 260, Room 215
Phone: 650 725 1214
rgreene@stanford.edu

Office Hours:

Tuesday 10:00 a.m. to 12 noon in 460-302 and by appointment

Affinity links:

criticism
literary theory
latin america
transatlantic
early modern
poetry and poetics

Roland Greene

Mark Pigott KBE Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences

Professor of English and Comparative Literature, and, by courtesy, Iberian and Latin American Cultures

Roland Greene is a scholar of Renaissance culture, especially the literatures of England, Latin Europe, and the transatlantic world, and of poetry and poetics from the sixteenth century to the present. His most recent book is Five Words: Critical Semantics in the Age of Shakespeare and Cervantes (Chicago, 2013). He is the editor in chief of the fourth edition of the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (2012).
 
His other books include Unrequited Conquests: Love and Empire in the Colonial Americas (Chicago, 1999), which argues that the love poetry of the Renaissance had a formative role in European ideas about the Americas during the first phase of the colonial period; Post-Petrarchism: Origins and Innovations of the Western Lyric Sequence (Princeton, 1991), a transhistorical study of lyric poetics; and, edited with Elizabeth Fowler, The Project of Prose in Early Modern Europe and the New World (Cambridge, 1997).
 
Greene is the general editor of a series of critical volumes titled World Literatures Reimagined. The first three volumes in the series, Earl Fitz's Brazilian Narrative Traditions in a Comparative Context, Azade Seyhan's Tales of Crossed Destinies: The Modern Turkish Novel in a Comparative Context, and Kirsty Hooper and Manuel Puga Moruxa's Contemporary Galician Studies, are in print.
 
The directions of Greene's research are reflected in the three working groups he oversees with colleagues and graduate students, two of which are formal Focal Groups in the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages. In 2004 he established Renaissances: A Research Group in Early Modern Literatures, which presents younger scholars from around the U.S. and elsewhere working on topics of long-term significance (for 2012-14, the topic is "Nodes, Networks, Names"). In 2006 he created the Stanford Poetics Workshop, which includes a regular membership of faculty members, advanced graduate students, and fellows at the Humanities Center. A group on Transamerican Studies, co-chaired with Ramón Saldívar, began meeting in the autumn of 2009 and is currently on hiatus. These groups invite both Stanford scholars and visitors to present research in progress, and serve to assemble the community of Ph.D. students currently working in these areas.
 
Greene is the Director of Arcade, a digital salon for literature and the humanities.
 
At Stanford he is actively involved with the Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in the Humanities, which brings postdoctoral scholars to campus, with the Bing Overseas Studies Program, and with the Program in Structured Liberal Education (SLE), of which he is a former director.
 
In 2015-16 Greene served as President of the Modern Language Association of America. His theme for the 2016 convention in Austin, Texas was Literature and Its Publics: Past, Present, and Future.

Education

1985: Ph.D., Princeton University
1979: A.B., Brown University

COURSES

COMPLIT 332 The Transatlantic Renaissance (ENGLISH 310)

The emergence of a transatlantic culture in the early modern period. How is the Renaissance of Europe and England fashioned in a conversation with the cultural forms and material realities of the colonial Americas? And how do colonial writings expand and complicate the available understanding of the Renaissance? Readings in Columbus, More, Hakluyt, Spenser, Shakespeare, the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.

DLCL 224 Workshop in Poetics

The Workshop in Poetics is concerned with the theoretical and practical dimensions of the reading and criticism of poetry. During the three years of its existence, the Workshop has become a central venue at Stanford enabling participants to share their individual projects in a general conversation outside of disciplinary and national confinements. The two dimensions that the workshop sees as urgent are: poetics in its specificity as an arena for theory and interpretive practice, and historical poetics as a particular set of challenges for the reader and scholar.

PUBLICATIONS

Advisees

Ph.D. Students, as Director or Co-Director:
 
Luis Rodríguez Rincón, "A World at Sea," Department of Comparative Literature, in progress
 
Luke Barnhart, "Plain Poetics: Alternative History for an Early Modern Style," Department of English, in progress
 
Jessica Beckman, "The Mind's Eye: Vision, Text, and Thought in Early Modern English Print," Department of English, in progress
 
Justin Tackett, "Listening Between the Lines: Sound Technology and Affect in Poetry, 1850-1930," Department of English, in progress
 
Jesse Nathan, "Poets' Poets," Department of English, in progress
 
Caroline Egan, "Imagined Voices: Amerindian Orality and New World Poetry," Department of Comparative Literature, in progress
 
Ryan Haas, "Enchanted Romanticism," Department of English, in progress
 
Lucy Alford, "Unfolding Presence: Poetic Attention through the Lens of the Twentieth Century," Department of Comparative Literature, in progress
 
Virginia Ramos, "The Modern Lyrical Novel," Department of Comparative Literature, in progress
 
Colin Moore, "Communicative Situations in Early Modern European Fiction," Department of Comparative Literature, in progress
 
Derek Mong, "The Marriage of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson," Department of English, 2015
 
Rhiannon Lewis, "Writing in Time: Labor and Work in English Poetry, 1557-1640," Department of English, 2015
 
Talya Meyers, "Epic and Encounter: Form and Culture in Early Modern Narrative Poetry," Department of English, 2015
 
Noam Pines, "The Poetics of Dehumanization in Jewish Literature," Department of Comparative Literature, 2014. Now Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Jewish Studies, University at Buffalo, State University of New York.
 
Bronwen Tate, "Putting it All In, Leaving it All Out: Expansion and Compression in Post-War Poetry," Department of Comparative Literature, 2014. Now Postdoctoral Fellow, Thinking Matters Program, Stanford University.
 
Christopher Donaldson, "The Local Poet in the Romantic Tradition," Department of Comparative Literature, 2012. Now Lecturer in English, University of Birmingham.
 
Kathryn Hume, "The Performance of Analysis in Seventeenth-Century Literature and Science," Department of Comparative Literature, 2012. Now Director of Sales and Marketing, Fast Forward Labs.
 
Anton Vander Zee, "'The Final Lilt of Songs': Late Whitman and the Long American Century," Department of English, 2012. Now Assistant Professor of English, College of Charleston.
 
Frederick L. Blumberg, "Literature and Its Rivals, 1500-1660," Department of Comparative Literature, 2011. Now Assistant Professor of English, University of Hong Kong.
 
Fabian Goppelsröder, "Kalendergeschichte and fait divers: The Poetics of Circumscribed Space," Department of Comparative Literature, 2011. Now Fedor Lynen Fellow, Department of Germanic Studies, University of Chicago.
 
Harris Feinsod, "Fluent Mundo: Inter-American Poetry, 1939-1973," Department of Comparative Literature, 2011. Now Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies, Northwestern University.
 
Stephanie Schmidt, "Foundational Narratives, Performance and the City," Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, 2011. Now Assistant Professor of Spanish, University at Buffalo, State University of New York.
 
David Marno, "Thanking as Thinking: The Poetics of Grace in John Donne's Holy Sonnets," Department of Comparative Literature, 2011. Now Assistant Professor of English, University of California, Berkeley.
 
Anne Marie Guglielmo, "Contested Genealogies in Early Modern Mediterranean Literature," Department of Comparative Literature, 2010
 
Ema Vyroubalová, "Linguistic Alterity and Foreignness in Early Modern England, 1534-1625," Department of English, 2010. Recipient of the department's Alden Prize for best dissertation, 2011. Now Assistant Professor of Early Modern English Literature, Trinity College, Dublin.
 
Claire Seiler, “Between Pole and Tropic: Poetry and Fiction, 1945-1955," Department of English, 2010. Now Assistant Professor of English, Dickinson College.
 
Enrique Lima, "Forms of Conquest: Indian Conflict and the Novel in the Americas," Department of Comparative Literature, 2006. Now Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
 
David Colón, "Embodying the Ideogram: Orientalism and the Visual Aesthetic in Modernist Poetry," Department of English, 2004. Now Associate Professor of English, Texas Christian University.
 
Jillanne Michell, "The Ethics of Toleration in English Renaissance Literature," Department of English, University of Oregon, 2004. Now Professor of English and Department Chair, Umpqua Community College.
 
Carolyn Bergquist, "Worlds of Persuasion," Department of English, University of Oregon, 2003. Now Senior Lecturer and Director of Composition, University of Oregon.
 
Kate Jenckes, "Allegories of Writing / History: Borges, Benjamin, and Buenos Aires," Program in Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, 2001. Now Associate Professor of Spanish, University of Michigan.
 
Miles Taylor, "Nation, History, and Theater: Representing the Past in the Drama of Early Modern England," Department of English, University of Oregon, 2000. Now Associate Professor of English, Le Moyne College.
 
Nina Chordas, "Utopian Poetics: The Praxis and Discourse of Utopia in England and America, 1516-1637," Department of English, University of Oregon, 1998. Now Associate Professor of English and Department Chair, University of Alaska Southeast.
 
Jaspal Singh, "Maddening Inscriptions: 'Madness' as Resistance in Postcolonial African and South Asian Women's Fiction and Film," Program in Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, 1998. Now Professor of English, Northern Michigan University.
 
Karen Piper, "Territories of the Novel: Borders, Identities, and Displacements in Twentieth-Century Fiction," Program in Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, 1996. Now Professor of English, University of Missouri, Columbia.
 
Marilyn G. Miller, "Miscegenation and the Narrative Voice," Program in Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, 1995. Now Associate Professor of Spanish, Tulane University.

Other Information

EVENTS
Future Lectures and Conference Papers:
 
“How We Share Ideas Now: Colloquies, A New Platform," Keynote Lecture, Council of Independent Colleges Workshop on Information Fluency in English and American Language and Literature, Louisville, March 10, 2016
 
President's Panel, Comparative Poetics and the Question of World Poetry, American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting, Harvard University, March 19, 2016
 
Roundtable, Toward a Literary History of Medieval and Renaissance Europe, Renaissance Society of America, Boston, April 1, 2016
 
"Who Was Shakespeare's Cervantes? Who Was Cervantes' Shakespeare?," Cervantes and Shakespeare 400th Anniversary Conference, Catholic Institute of Paris and University of Poitiers, Paris, April 20, 2016
 
"1616: Three Deaths and Why They Mattered," Symposium on 1616, Rhodes College, April 22, 2016
 
"Four Hundred Years Ago Today: What Ended? What Began?," North Dakota State University, Fargo, April 23, 2016
 
"Shakespeare + Cervantes + 1616," Keynote Lecture, Sociedad Hispano-Portuguesa de Estudios Renacentistas Ingleses (SEDERI), Valladolid, May 3-6, 2016
 
Recent Lectures and Conference Papers:
 
"The Renaissance World of Cervantes and Shakespeare" and "The Baroque World of Cervantes and Shakespeare," Keynote Lectures, Humanities West, San Francisco, February 2016
 
"Who Was Shakespeare's Cervantes?," Shakespeare Across the Divide, Betsy Hotel, Miami, February 2016
 
"Shakespeare's Latinidad: Or, Why Read a Renaissance Playwright in 21st-Century Miami?," Honors College, Florida International University, February 2016
 
"Spenser's Unwritten Poetics," Hugh MacLean Memorial Lecture, International Spenser Society, Modern Language Association (MLA) Convention, Austin, January 2016
 
"Literature and Its Publics: Past, Present, and Future," Presidential Address, MLA Convention, Austin, January 2016
 
"Baroque as Inception: The Dreams of Calderón and Sor Juana," Group for Early Modern Studies, University of Ghent, November 2015
 
"How Poetry Remakes the World: Elegy and Epithalamion in Renaissance Poetics," History and Forms of Lyric Series, University of Chicago, October 2015
 
"The Future of the Past: Old Terms, New Lives," Brazenly Brown, Creative Arts Council, Brown University, September 2015
 
"O Fim de Universalismo: Novas Coletividades nos Estudos Literários de Hoje," Keynote Lecture, Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Letras e Linguística (ANPOLL), University of São Paulo, July 2015
 
"Did Early Modern Readers Do Close Readings?," Fifth Conference of the International Spenser Society, Dublin, June 2015
 
Closing Roundtable on The Future of the Post-, Is Theory Critical?, Critical Theory Institute, University of California, Irvine, May 2015
 
In Between Languages Workshop, London Arts and Humanities Partnership, King's College London, May 2015
 
Jews and Crypto-Jews in Early Modern Europe: An International Workshop, King's College London, May 2015
 
"Inceptions of the English Baroque: Donne and Milton," Department of English, University of Pennsylvania, April 2015
 
"Imagining the English Baroque," Yonsei University and Ewha Woman's University, Seoul, April 2015
 
"The Baroque Donne," Department of English, Princeton University, February 2015
 
"The Lexicon of the Baroque in Don Quixote, Part II," Department of Comparative Literature, University of Oregon, February 2015
 
"Inceptions of the Baroque: Pascal's Pensées and Milton's Paradise Lost," Department of French and Italian, Indiana University, Bloomington, February 2015
 
Chair and organizer, Redrawing the Boundaries of Europe: Current Geopolitical Developments and What We Study, Roundtable, Modern Language Association of America  (MLA) Convention, Vancouver, January 2015
 
"Sweetness in 1599," Rhythm and Rhyme, Division on Poetry, Modern Language Association of America  (MLA) Convention, Vancouver, January 2015
 
"Auerbach's Universalism in His Time and Ours," Auerbach Our Contemporary? Responding to Figura, University of California, Los Angeles, January 2015
 
"The Humanities in the World: Three Propositions for the Next Ten Years," Keynote Lecture, London Arts and Humanities Partnership, University of London, May 2014
 
"Auerbach's Universalism," Reading Mimesis Chapter 13, Shakespeare Association of America, St. Louis, April 2014
 
"Institutions and the Vernacular," Renaissance Society of America, New York, March 2014
 
Roundtable, Transgressing Boundaries: Comparative Epic and Drama, Renaissance Society of America, New York, March 2014
 
"Cervantes in Shakespeare in Theobald: Three Stages of Literary History in One Artifact," Double Falshood (1727) and Cardenio (1613): Theobald, Fletcher, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies and William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, January 2014
 
"The Semantics of the Baroque: How Seventeenth-Century Poets and Artists Understood (and Translated) the Terms for a Baroque Aesthetic," Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, November 2013