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Professor Peter Holbrook FAHA

Professor of Literature

Areas of expertise: Shakespeare and English Renaissance literature; literature from other times and places.

HDR Supervisor accreditation status: Full

Phone: +61 3 9953 3275

Email: peter.holbrook@acu.edu.au

Location:  ACU Melbourne Campus

ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0089-4406

Peter Holbrook has written mainly about Shakespeare, often Shakespeare’s relationship to other authors.  He holds a B.A. (Hons) in English and Ancient Greek from the University of Melbourne and an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in English from Yale.  He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.  From 1996 to 2021 he worked at the University of Queensland where, from 2010-2020, he was Director of the UQ Node of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800).  He has served on the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts, and, from 2011-16, was Chair of the International Shakespeare Association, which is based in Shakespeare’s birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon.  He has written widely for newspapers and magazines in Australia on a variety of writers and topics, including the future of literary culture. 

Select publications

Books

• English Renaissance Tragedy: Ideas of Freedom. London: Bloomsbury/Arden Shakespeare, 2015.
• Shakespeare’s Individualism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• Literature and Degree in Renaissance England: Nashe, Bourgeois Tragedy, Shakespeare. Newark: University of Delaware Press/London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1994.

Edited volumes

• Shakespeare’s Creative Legacies: Artists, Writers, Performers, Readers. London: Bloomsbury/Arden Shakespeare, 2016; co-edited with Paul Edmondson.
• Ian Hunter and the Humanities in Australia. Special issue of History of European Ideas 1-2 (2014): 96-102; co-edited with Rex Butler.
• Shakespeare and Montaigne Revisited: The Shakespearean International Yearbook Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2006.
• The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; co-edited with David Bevington.

Selected chapters

• “The Idea of Communism in Shakespeare”, in The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Social Justice, ed. David Ruiter (London: Bloomsbury/Arden Shakespeare, 2021), pp. 251-65.
• “Passionate Shakespeare”, in Shakespeare and Emotion, ed. Katharine A. Craik (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 181-99.
• “The Court Masque: Art and Politics”, in Gathering Force: Early Modern British Literature in Transition, 1557-1623, ed. Kristen Poole and Lauren Shohet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 161-77.
• “Drama”, in A Cultural History of the Emotions in the Baroque and Enlightenment Age, ed. Claire Walker, Katie Barclay, and David Lemmings (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), pp. 71–84.
• “Shakespeare and Dependency”, in “Shakespeare and Value”, special section of The Shakespearean International Yearbook 17 (2018), ed. Simon Haines, pp. 74-83.
• “Shakespeare and Philosophy” in The Shakespearean World, ed. Jill Levenson and Robert Ormsby (New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 512-27.
• “Stevenson’s Metaphysics”, in Robert Louis Stevenson and the Great Affair: Movement, Memory and Modernity, ed. Richard Hill (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 27-40.
• “Materialist and Political Criticism”, in The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare, ed. Bruce R. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 1774-81.
• “Introduction”, co-written with Paul Edmondson, in Shakespeare’s Creative Legacies: Artists, Writers, Performers, Readers (London: Bloomsbury/Arden Shakespeare, 2016), pp. 1-7.
• “Afterword”, The Renaissance of Emotion: Understanding Affect in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, ed. Erin Sullivan and Richard Meek (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), pp. 264-72.
• “Nietzsche’s Shakespeare”, in Shakespeare and Continental Philosophy, ed. Jennifer Bates and Richard Wilson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), pp. 76-93.
• “Shakespeare, Montaigne, and Classical Reason,” in Shakespeare and Ethics, ed. John Cox and Patrick Gray (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 261-83.
• “Thomas Hardy”: 20,000 word chapter in volume V (on Scott, Dickens, Eliot, Hardy) of the series Great Shakespeareans. Series editors: Peter Holland and Adrian Poole; this volume ed. Poole (London: Continuum, 2011), pp. 139-83.
• “Shakespeare and Poetry”, in The Edinburgh Companion to Shakespeare and the Arts, ed. Mark Thornton Burnett, Adrian Streete, Ramona Wray (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), pp. 37-49.
• “Introduction”, Shakespeare and Montaigne Revisited: The Shakespearean International Yearbook 6, ed. Holbrook (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate), 2006, pp. 5-21.
• “Ian Fairweather: Vision and Abandonment”, in Ian Fairweather: An Artist of the Twenty-First Century (Lismore Regional Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, 2006), pp. 5-22.
• “Dark Shakespeare”, in Where Are We Now in Shakespearean Studies? The Shakespearean International Yearbook 3 (2003), pp. 115-31.
• “Class X: Shakespeare, Class, and the Comedies”, in volume III (on The Comedies) in A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works, ed. Richard Dutton and Jean E. Howard (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 67-90.
• “Jacobean Masques and the Jacobean Peace”, in The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque, pp. 67-87.
• “Introduction”, in The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque, pp. 1-20 (co-written with David Bevington).

Selected articles

• “Context and Contextualisation: Remarks on the Work of Ian Hunter”, History of European Ideas1-2 (2014): 96-102.
• “‘Endless Mornings on Endless Faces’: Shakespeare and Philip Larkin”, Shakespeare Survey 64 (2011): 328-40.
• “Vulgar, Sentimental, and Liberal Criticism: F.J. Furnivall and T.S. Eliot on Shakespeare and Chaucer”, Modern Philology 1 (2009): 96-126.
• “Shakespeare, ‘The Cause of the People’, and The Chartist Circular 1839-1842”, Textual Practice 2 (2006): 203-29.
• “Anne Wallace: Painting and Awareness”, HEAT 9 (2005): 139-65.
• “Shakespeare as a Force for Good”, Shakespeare Survey 56 (2003): 203-15.
• “The Left and King Lear”, Textual Practice2 (2000): 343-62.
• “Poetry and Sadness” (on A.E. Housman), HEAT 1 (2001): 133-43.
• “Nietzsche’s Hamlet”, Shakespeare Survey 50 (1997): 171-87.
• Reviews for TLS, Review of English Studies, Modern Philology, Shakespeare Quarterly, etc.

Selected invited lectures

• “Shakespeare and the Question of the Natural”, Alice Griffen Shakespeare Lecture, University of Auckland, 17 October 2017.
• “Shakespeare, English Literature, and the Politics of Nature”, Munich Shakespeare Library, LMU Munich, 4 May 2017.
• “On the Theme of Naturalness in English Literature”, University of Paris Sorbonne, 20 April 2017.
• Keynote lecture at “World Literatures: Shakespeare and Cervantes 2016”, 6th Bonn Humboldt Award Winners’ Forum, Bonn, Germany, 12-15 October 2016.
• “Shakespeare’s Enormous Sketches: Unfinishedness, Ideology, and the Case of E.M. Cioran”, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 23 April 2016.
• “Philosophical Approaches to Shakespeare’s Work: An Overview”, keynote lecture, International Conference of the Taiwan Association for Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, 23-24 October 2015.
• “Shakespeare and the Idea of Communism”, London Shakespeare Seminar, Senate House, University of London, 12 October 2015.
• “Why Read Tragedy Today?”, National Library of Australia, Canberra (in association with Australian National University), 11 March 2015.
• “The Idea of Motion in Shakespeare”, keynote lecture, “Shakespearean Journeys”: Conference of the Asian Shakespeare Association, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 15-18 May 2014.
• “The Rose and the Axe: E.M. Cioran and Shakespeare”, keynote lecture, “A Journey of 450 Years”: 2014 International Shakespeare Workshop, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, 14 May 2014.
• “Shakespeare and Henri Bergson”, London Shakespeare Seminar, Senate House, University of London, 9 December 2013.
• Keynote address, Conference of the Shakespeare Association of Korea, Seoul National University, South Korea, November 2013.
• Panel presenter (with Professors Ewan Fernie and John Gillies), “Shakespeare and the Penalty of Adam”, Shakespeare Association of America, Boston, April 2012.
• “Shakespeare and Value”, Chinese University of Hong Kong, June 2010.
• “Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot”, keynote lecture, Shakespeare Society of Germany, Weimar, April 2009.
• Chair (with Professor Ruth Morse, University of Paris), Research Seminar, “Shakespeare and Modern Poetry”, Shakespeare Association of America, Dallas, March 2008.
• “Authenticity in George Herbert”, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, December 2007.
• “Shakespeare and Larkin”, University of Bristol, Department of English, June 2007.
• Chair (with Professor Andreas Höfele, LMU), Research Seminar, “Shakespeare and Marx”, VIII World Shakespeare Congress, International Shakespeare Association, Brisbane, July 2006.

Projects

Selected grants

• 2020-present: Project Supporter, for the “Everything to Everybody” initiative led by Professor Ewan Fernie, Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, which is supported by a GBP1.7 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
• 2010-2018: Chief Investigator, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe, 1100-1800), $24.25 million.
• 2007-2009: Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, $148,000.
• 2005-2009: Chief Investigator, Australian Research Council Network for Early European Research, $1.6 million.

Accolades and awards

• Fellow, Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Appointments and affiliations

• Professor of Shakespeare and English Renaissance Literature, University of Queensland, 2010-2021.
• Director, UQ Node of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800), 2010 to December, 2020.
• Chair, International Shakespeare Association, 2011-16.
• Member, International Shakespeare Conference, Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, 2001-present.
• Member, Literature Board, Australia Council for the Arts, 2006-2009.

Editorial roles

• Editorial Board, Shakespeare Quarterly (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2016-21.

Public engagement

• Many contributions to promote the teaching of literature in schools, including giving talks to and organising numerous workshops for high-school teachers: e.g., keynote address for the combined conference, Australian Association for Teachers of English/English Teachers’ Association of Queensland, Brisbane, July 2013; and keynote address, “Literature, Literacy, the Imagination, Freedom”, English Teachers’ Association of Queensland, August 2011.