Elected Directors
Vin Nardizzi (Associate Professor, English, University of British Columbia) teaches Renaissance literature, ecocriticism, and queer and disability studies. Website / Email
David Coley (Associate Professor, English, Simon Fraser University) teaches Medieval literature, with an emphasis on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He is currently working on the Black Death and the shape it assumes in late-medieval English poetry. Website / Email
Sharon O’Dair (Professor Emerita, English, University of Alabama) currently lives in Berkeley, California and writes about Shakespeare, ecology, social class, and the profession of literary studies. Email
Executive Council of Players (2018-21)
Diversity Office: Mo Pareles (Assistant Professor, English, University of British Columbia) teaches medieval literature. She currently researches the mutual construction of species, sexual, and ethnic difference in medieval English religious literature. Website / Email
International/National Liaison: Allan Mitchell (Professor, English, University of Victoria) works across a range of medieval genres and is currently writing about how scientific texts and technical objects functioned as environmental interfaces. Email
Activities Coordinator: Fran Dolan (Distinguished Professor of English, University of California, Davis) has published five books, most recently True Relations: Reading, Literature, and Evidence in Seventeenth-Century England (2013), which won the John Ben Snow prize from the North American Conference on British Studies. Her current project, Digging the Past: How and Why to Imagine Seventeenth-Century Agriculture, includes chapters on composting and soil amendment, local food and turnips, winemaking, hedgerows, and Historic Jamestown. Email
Membership: Louisa Mackenzie, (Associate Professor, French and Italian Studies, University of Washington in Seattle). Their research and teaching interests include early modern French literature, ecocriticism, Animal Studies, and contemporary science fiction. Email
Secretary: Courtney Barajas (Assistant Professor of English & Director of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Whitworth University in Spokane) works at the intersection of literary, environmental, and religious studies. When she’s not reading or teaching, Courtney spends her time hiking, kayaking, and adding to her collection of cacti.
Membership: Derrick Higginbotham (Assistant Professor of English, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa) teaches late medieval and early modern literature, working at the intersection of queer theory, critical race studies, as well as eco-criticism. He is finishing a book entitled Winners and Wasters: Gender, Economics and Theater in England, c. 1400 – c. 1650.
Graduate Student Liaisons
Alex Cosh, (English, University of British Columbia) researches early modern mercantile culture, economy, and conflict.
Karol Pasciano, (English, University of British Columbia) researches ecomateriality, queer ecologies, and disease ecologies in early modern literature. Twitter / Email
Breanne Weber (English, University of California, Davis) is obtaining her Ph.D. in English Literature with a designated emphasis in Science and Technology Studies. Her research interests include early modern women’s writing, environmental humanities, history of science/the book, and digital humanities. Email
Members’ and Collaborators’ Bookshelf
If you have questions about our webpage or our programming, please contact Alexander Cosh.
