Emma Smith

Dr Emma Smith's research combines a range of approaches to Shakespeare and early modern drama. She is currently working on the First Folio (1623), a project combining aspects of the history of the book, histories of reading, and the interpretation of Shakespeare on the page. Her next project will be on the construction of character in printed drama. With Tamara Atkin at QMUL, she is working on the way cast lists in printed drama through the sixteenth and seventeenth century can inform our understanding of the experience of seeing, as well as reading, plays. She is part of a team of scholars revising the Riverside Shakespeare under the general editorship of Douglas Bruster. She is also interested in drama in performance, in the methodology of writing about theatre, in reviewing and its rhetoric, and in developing analogies between cinema, film theory, and early modern performance. She is working with Charlotte Brewer on a pilot project on the Oxford English Dictionary and Shakespeare, which they hope will develop into a website and associated publications on the issue of Shakespeare’s linguistic creativity and how it has been recorded. Pedagogy is important to her and she continues to work on readerly editions of early modern texts and on books, articles and lectures which disseminate research to the widest possible audience. A good example is her involvement in the 'Sprint for Shakespeare' project.

Bodleian's First Folio Great Writers Inspire Personal Web Page Faculty Profile Page College Profile Page Extract from 'The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare' (2007)

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Title	Description	People	Date
Love's Labour's Lost	Emma Smith continues her Approaching Shakespeare series with a lecture on the play Love's Labour's Lost.	Emma Smith	12 February, 2024
S1 Ep1: Welcome to BOOKNESS	Welcome to BOOKNESS, a podcast from the Centre for the Study of the Book at the Bodleian Libraries exploring artists' books made of unusual materials…	Alice Evans, Jo Maddocks, Chris Fletcher, Emma Smith, Adam Smyth	8 November, 2022
TORCH Post-Show Conversations: Much Ado About Nothing	Listen in as Judith Buchanan and Emma Smith discuss a March 2022 RSC production of Much Ado About Nothing	Judith Buchanan, Emma Smith	10 July, 2022
Emma Smith interviews Shahnaz Ahsan	Shahnaz Ahsan is Emma's guest to discuss her debut novel, Hashim & Family. They talk about Bangladesh, about the personal and the political, and about the classroom experience that has seared itself into her fiction.	Emma Smith, Shahnaz Ahsan	17 December, 2021
Emma Smith interviews Alex Preston	Emma Smith chats with Alex Preston about Hertford, his career in finance, bees, and his new historical novel Winchelsea - Emma also teases Alex about the label of Mr Nice Review in Private Eye.	Emma Smith, Alex Preston	17 December, 2021
Emma Smith interviews Louisa Reid	Louisa Reid's Young Adult novels in verse have been widely praised: join Emma Smith for a discussion of the challenges and responsibilities of writing for teens, as well as Louisa's experience as a teacher.	Emma Smith, Louisa Reid	30 November, 2021
Emma Smith interviews Claire McGowan	Memories, genre fiction and writing under a different pen name are all on the agenda for this podcast with Northern Irish crime author Claire McGowan (and her alter ego Eva Woods).	Emma Smith, Claire McGowan	17 November, 2021
Emma Smith interviews Anya Glazer	This week’s guest is children’s picture book author and illustrator Anya Glazer. We talk dinosaurs, sisters, merchandizing and how she riffed on her Modern Languages degree for her first book, Thesaurus has a Secret.	Emma Smith, Anya Glazer	4 November, 2021
Emma Smith interviews James Hawes	James Hawes, novelist and micro-historian of The Shortest History of England and The Shortest History of Germany, talks about agents and editors, his role in the worst film ever made, and playing the French horn on the roof of Hertford’s library.	Emma Smith, James Hawes	21 October, 2021
The Great Plague	in the final plague episode of the series, Professor Peter Millican talks to his guests about the last major outbreak of this horrific disease in seventeenth-century England.	Peter Millican, Paul Slack, Emma Smith, Kees Windland	1 December, 2020
Live Event: This is Shakespeare - Prof Emma Smith in conversation with Erica Whyman OBE	Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities.	Emma Smith, Erica Whyman	15 September, 2020
The Two Gentlemen of Verona	Professor Emma Smith gives the last of her 2017 Shakespeare lectures on his early comedy, Two Gentlemen of Verona.	Emma Smith	15 December, 2017
Henry VI, Part 2	Professor Emma Smith continues her Approaching Shakespeare series with a 2017 lecture on the early history play, Henry VI, Part 2.	Emma Smith	9 November, 2017
The Merry Wives of Windsor	Professor Emma Smith lectures on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.	Emma Smith	25 October, 2017
All's Well That Ends Well	Professor Emma Smith lectures on Shakespeare’s comedy All's Well That Ends Well.	Emma Smith	25 October, 2017
Cymbeline	Professor Emma Smith continues her Approaching Shakespeare series with a lecture on one of Shakespeare’s later plays, Cymbeline.	Emma Smith	25 October, 2017
Memorialising Shakespeare: The First Folio and other elegies	Emma Smith (Professor of English Literature, Oxford), gives a talk on Shakespeare memorials.	Emma Smith	2 June, 2016
Emma Smith on Forgetting in the Digital Age	Emma Smith talks as part of the "What does it mean to be human in the digital age?" event	Emma Smith	26 January, 2016
What Does it Mean to be Human in the Digital Age?	A librarian, literary scholar, museum director and digital commentator explore how the digital age has shaped, and will continue to shape, the human experience and the humanities	Lynne Brindley, Tom Chatfield, Chris Fletcher, Diane Lees, Emma Smith	22 January, 2016
The Tamer Tam'd: John Fletcher	A riposte to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew	Emma Smith	16 November, 2015
Tis Pity She's a Whore: John Ford	Reboot of Romeo and Juliet and other Elizabethan plays	Emma Smith	11 November, 2015
The Witch Of Edmonton	Witchcraft and bigamy.	Emma Smith	3 November, 2015
A Chaste Maid in Cheapside: Thomas Middleton	This lecture discusses comedy, fertility, and all those illegitimate children in this play about sex, economics and meat.	Emma Smith	27 October, 2015
The Alchemist: Ben Jonson	Written in the context of plague in London, The Alchemist’s plot and language are deeply concerned with speed and speculation.	Emma Smith	27 October, 2015
Dr Faustus: Christopher Marlowe	My lecture on this infernal play discusses Elizabethan religion, the revisions to the play, and whether we should think about James Bond in its final minutes.	Emma Smith	26 October, 2015
Timon of Athens	Emma Smith finishes her Approaching Shakespeare series with a lecture on the play Timon of Athens.	Emma Smith	23 June, 2015
Love's Labour's Lost	Emma Smith continues her Approaching Shakespeare series with a lecture on the play Love's Labour's Lost.	Emma Smith	27 May, 2015
Julius Caesar	This lecture on Julius Caesar discusses structure, tone, and politics by focusing on the cameo scene with Cinna the Poet.	Emma Smith	18 May, 2015
Romeo and Juliet	This lecture on Romeo and Juliet tackles the issue of the spoiler-chorus, in an already-too-familiar play. This podcast is suitable for school and college students.	Emma Smith	5 May, 2015
Coriolanus	This lecture takes up a detail from Shakespeare’s late Roman tragedy Coriolanus to ask about the representation of character, the use of sources and the genre of tragedy.	Emma Smith	5 May, 2015
16.To Shakespeare and Beyond: a panel discussion.	Cultural Connections discussion panel Casandra Ash, Peter Kirwan, Jose Perez Diaz and Emma Smith. Part of the Digital Humanities @ Oxford Summer School 2013.	Cassandra Ash, Peter Kirwan, José Pérez Díez, Emma Smith	7 August, 2013
Why should we study Shakespeare?	Dr Emma Smith of Hertford College, Oxford, discusses her current research and proposes why we should still study Shakespeare.	Emma Smith, Ilana Lassman	31 July, 2013
The Merchant of Venice	This lecture on The Merchant of Venice discusses the ways the play's personal relationships are shaped by models of financial transaction, using the casket scenes as a central example.	Emma Smith	20 November, 2012
Taming of the Shrew	Emma Smith uses evidence of early reception and from more recent productions to discuss the question of whether Katherine is tamed at the end of the play.	Emma Smith	9 November, 2012
A Midsummer Night's Dream	This lecture on A Midsummer Night's Dream uses modern and early modern understandings of dreams to uncover a play less concerned with marriage and more with sexual desire.	Emma Smith	5 November, 2012
Much Ado About Nothing	Emma Smith asks why the characters are so quick to believe the self-proclaimed villain Don John, drawing on gender and performance criticism to think about male bonding, the genre of comedy, and the impulses of modern performance.	Emma Smith	30 October, 2012
Hamlet	The fact that father and son share the same name in Hamlet is used to investigate the play's nostalgia, drawing on biographical criticism and the religious and political history of early modern England.	Emma Smith	23 October, 2012
As You Like It	Asking 'what happens in As You Like It', this lecture considers the play's dramatic structure and its ambiguous use of pastoral, drawing on performance history, genre theory, and eco-critical approaches.	Emma Smith	23 October, 2012
King Lear	Showing how generations of critics - and Shakespeare himself - have rewritten the ending of King Lear, this sixteenth Approaching Shakespeare lecture engages with the question of tragedy and why it gives pleasure.	Emma Smith	22 February, 2012
King John	At the heart of King John is the death of his rival Arthur: this fifteenth lecture in the Approaching Shakespeare series looks at the ways history and legitimacy are complicated in this plotline.	Emma Smith	10 February, 2012
Pericles, Prince of Tyre	Pericles has been on the margins of the Shakespearean canon: this fourteenth lecture in the Approaching Shakespeare series shows some of its self-conscious artistry and contemporary popularity.	Emma Smith	1 February, 2012
Richard III	In this thirteenth lecture in the Approaching Shakespeare series the focus is on the inevitability of the ending of Richard III: does the play endorse Richmond's final victory?	Emma Smith	25 January, 2012
The Comedy of Errors	Lecture 12 in the Approaching Shakespeare series asks how seriously we can take the farcical exploits of Comedy of Errors, drawing out the play's serious concerns with identity and selfhood.	Emma Smith	23 January, 2012
Henry IV part 1	Like generations of theatre-goers, this lecture concentrates on the (large) figure of Sir John Falstaff and investigates his role in Henry IV part 1. Lecture 11 in the Approaching Shakespeare series.	Emma Smith	16 November, 2011
The Tempest	That the character of Prospero is a Shakespearean self-portrait is a common reading of The Tempest: this tenth Approaching Shakespeare lecture asks whether that is a useful reading of the play.	Emma Smith	14 November, 2011
Antony and Cleopatra	What kind of tragedy is this play, with its two central figures rather than a singular hero? The ninth lecture in the Approaching Shakespeare series tries to find out.	Emma Smith	10 November, 2011
Richard II	Lecture eight in the Approaching Shakespeare series asks the question that structures Richard II: does the play suggest Henry Bolingbroke's overthrow of the king was justified?	Emma Smith	1 November, 2011
Twelfth Night	The seventh Approaching Shakespeare lecture takes a minor character in Twelfth Night - Antonio - and uses his presence to open up questions of sexuality, desire and the nature of romantic comedy.	Emma Smith	20 October, 2011
Titus Andronicus	Focusing in detail on one particular scene, and on critical responses to it, this sixth Approaching Shakespeare lecture on Titus Andronicus deals with violence, rhetoric, and the nature of dramatic sensationalism.	Emma Smith	19 October, 2011
The Winter's Tale	How we can make sense of a play that veers from tragedy to comedy and stretches credulity in its conclusion? That's the topic for this fifth Approaching Shakespeare lecture on The Winter's Tale.	Emma Smith	9 November, 2010
Macbeth	In this fourth Approaching Shakespeare lecture the question is one of agency: who or what makes happen the things that happen in Macbeth?	Emma Smith	2 November, 2010
Measure for Measure	The third Approaching Shakespeare lecture, on Measure for Measure, focuses on the vexed question of this uncomic comedy's genre.	Emma Smith	26 October, 2010
Henry V	The second lecture in the Approaching Shakespeare series looks at King Henry V, and asks whether his presentation in the play is entirely positive.	Emma Smith	20 October, 2010
The Bodleian Shakespeare: A treasure lost... and regained	From the 2010 Alumni Weekend. Emma Smith reveals how Oxford University mobilised Alumni support to bring Shakespeare's First Folio back to the Bodleian library over 200 years after it was lost.	Emma Smith	19 October, 2010
Othello	First in Emma Smith's Approaching Shakespeare lecture series; looking at the central question of race and its significance in the play.	Emma Smith	18 October, 2010
Dr. Emma Smith, Fellow in English, Hertford College	Dr. Emma Smith on the UNIQ Summer School programme at the University of Oxford.	Emma Smith	21 January, 2010
The Duchess of Malfi: John Webster	In dramatizing a woman's sexual choices in a notably sympathetic manner, this tragedy articulates perennial questions about female autonomy and class distinction.	Emma Smith	24 November, 2009
The Roaring Girl: Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker	Based on a contemporary scandal of a woman who dressed in male clothing, this play of topsy-turvy genders has fun with some very modern ideas about sexuality, identity and whether we are what we wear.	Emma Smith	13 November, 2009
The Revenger's Tragedy: Thomas Middleton	A blackly camp tragedy - Hamlet without the narcissism - set in a court corrupted by lust and self-interest, this play is both fascinated and repelled by its own depravity.	Emma Smith	6 November, 2009
The Shoemaker's Holiday: Thomas Dekker	Like a Busby Berkeley depression-era musical, Dekker's comedy is a feel-good antidote to a context of shortages, political malaise and general pessimism, but real life in the shape of war, class antagonism and civic tensions, always threatens to intrude.	Emma Smith	6 November, 2009
Arden of Faversham: Anon	A true crime story of the murder of Thomas Arden by his wife and her lover, this play is concerned with the politics of the household, with gender roles within marriage, and presents a black comedy of botched murder attempts rather like The Ladykillers.	Emma Smith	5 November, 2009
The Spanish Tragedy: Thomas Kyd	Popular tragedy in which Hieronimo pursues aristocratic murderers of his son Horatio and takes revenge. It speaks, like Hollywood Westerns, to questions about private revenge versus public justice, and to the vexed religious questions of its age.	Emma Smith	5 November, 2009

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