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  • Aidan Selmer
  • Graduate Student
  • ajs651@rutgers.edu
  • Primary Areas of Specialization: Early Modern English poetry and drama in the context of post-Reformation church history
  • Field of Interest: Book and Media History, Drama & Performance Studies, Early Modern, Poetry & Poetics
  • About:

    My research examines early modern English poetry and drama in the context of post-Reformation church history. I have working projects on religious nationalism and discrimination in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Othello, John Milton's indebtedness in Paradise Lost to Paul's writings on religious mystery as a key way to realize religious "truth" in a faith community, and Edmund Spenser's ambivalence towards religious iconoclasm. I also work on the influence that music theory and media exerts upon early modern English literature. My work on this front includes research on the lyric "Take, o take those lips away," a likely non-Shakespearean song added to his play, Measure for Measure, which invites disruptive associations with popular revenge tragedy entiteld Rollo, Duke of Normandy; and a broad reassessment of the status of vocal songs within the poetry of Edmund Spenser.

  • Awards:

    Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada--Doctoral Fellow

    Catherine Musello Cantelupo Prize--awarded for paper entitled, "The Body Politics of Kneeling in Titus Andronicus and the Book of Common Prayer"

  • Membership Affiliations:

    Renaissance Society of America

  • Education: B.A. Summa Cum Laude, College of William & Mary M.A. University of Toronto