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Stephen Spiess

  • Assistant Professor
Academic Division: Arts & Humanities
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781-239-4401
Stephen Spiess is assistant professor of literature at Babson College. He specializes in early modern English literature and culture, with particular investments in Shakespeare and the interrelations of sex, language, embodiment, and knowledge in the English Renaissance. He is currently completing a book, Shakespeare and the Making of English Whoredom, for Oxford University Press, and co-editing, with Marjorie Rubright, an essay collection entitled Logomotives: Words that Change the Premodern World, which will appear as part of the Early Modern Conversions series at Edinburgh University Press. His new book project, Renaissance Undoing, examines an early modern fascination with, and fear of, "becoming undone." His work has appeared in Shakespeare Survey, Renaissance Quarterly, The Review of English Studies, The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment: Gender, Sexuality, and Race, and Blind Spots of Knowledge in Shakespeare and His World.

Stephen completed his PhD in English Language & Literature at the University of Michigan (2013), where he also received the David & Linda Moscow Prize for Excellence in Teaching English Composition (2010). In 2021, he received the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence in Undergraduate Education. Before joining the Babson faculty in 2017, he taught at Stanford University.

Academic Degrees

  • Ph D, University of Michigan
  • Graduate Certificate (Women's Studies), University of Michigan
  • MA, University of Michigan
  • MA, Dartmouth College
  • BA, Brown University

Academic Interest / Expertise

Early Modern English Language, Literature, & Culture; Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama, including Shakespeare; Cultural Materialism; Feminist Literary Criticism & Theory; History of Sexuality (including Queer Theory); English Lexical Culture (Philology, Lexicography, Keywords).

Awards & Honors

  • 2024 — Mini-Grant, Babson College Research Fund (BFRF), Babson College
  • 2024 — Babson Pride Award, Babson College
  • 2024 — Mini-Grant, Babson College Research Fund (BFRF), Babson College
  • 2021 — Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence, Babson College
  • 2019 — Mini-Grant, Babson College Research Fund (BFRF), Babson College
  • 2016 — Research Associate, Forms of Conversion: Religion, Culture, and Cognitive Ecologies in Early Modern Europe and its Worlds , SSHRC Research Grant
  • 2016 — Research Seminarian, Theatre and Conversion in Early Modern Europe, McGill University
  • 2014 — Honourable Mention, J. Leeds Barroll Dissertation Prize, Shakespeare Association of America
  • 2013 — Clarence D. Thorpe Dissertation Prize, English Department, University of Michigan
  • 2012 — Robyn A. Thevenet Fellowship, Women’s Studies Department, University of Michigan
  • 2012 — Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship, University of Michigan
  • 2012 — Research Grant for Scholarship Focusing on Women and Gender, Institute for the Research of Women and Gender, University of Michigan
  • 2010 — David & Linda Moscow Prize for Excellence in Teaching English Composition, English Department Writing Program, University of Michigan
  • 2010 — Community of Scholars, Institute for the Research of Women and Gender, University of Michigan
  • 2010 — Graduate Mentor Fellowship, English Department Writing Program, University of Michigan
  • 1999 — Rose Writing Fellowship, Brown University

Courses

  • Degree Courses 2025

    • LTA 2079 THEORIES OF LOVE
    • LTA 2082 THE SEXUAL RENAISSANCE

  • Degree Courses 2024

    • LTA 2079 THEORIES OF LOVE
    • LTA 2082 THE SEXUAL RENAISSANCE

Publications

Journal Articles

  • Spiess, S. (2024). "The Confounding Gloss: Reading the Lowne in Pericles and Edward II". Modern Philology. Vol: 121, Issue: 3, Page: 296-325. link
  • Spiess, S. (2014). The Measure of Sexual Memory. Vol: 67, Page: 310-326. Cambridge University Press. link

Books

  • Spiess, S., Rubright, M. (2025). Logomotives: Words that Change the World, 1400-1700: Logomotives: Words that Change the World, 1400-1700. Edinburgh University Press.

Book Chapters

  • Spiess, S., Rubright, M. (2025). Introduction: From Keywords to Logomotives: Logomotives: Words the Change the World, 1400-1700. Edinburgh University Press.
  • Spiess, S. (2019). "Baffling Comedy, Baffling Ourselves": Blind Spots of Knowledge in Shakespeare’s World: A Conversation. Page: 39-41. Medieval Institute Publications.
  • Spiess, S. (2019). "The Epistemology of Violence in The Comedie of Errors": Blind Spots of Knowledge in Shakespeare’s World: A Conversation. Page: 143-152. Medieval Institute Publications.
  • Spiess, S. (2019). “Towards an Epistemology of the Stage?": Blind Spots of Knowledge in Shakespeare's World: A Conversation. Page: 92-95. Medieval Institute Publications.
  • Spiess, S. (2016). "Puzzling Embodiment: Proclamation, La Pucelle, and The first Part of Henry VI," in The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment: Gender, Sexuality, and Race: The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment: Gender, Sexuality, and Race. Page: 93-111. Oxford University Press. link

Book Reviews

  • Spiess, S., Rubright, M. (2024). Review of Jenny C. Mann, Trials of Orpheus: Poetry, Science, and the Early Modern Sublime. Vol: 52, Page: 257-261. Shakespeare Studies.
  • Spiess, S. (2017). Review of Jeffrey Masten, Queer Philologies: Sex, Language, and Affect in Shakespeare’s Time . Vol: 68, Issue: 287, Page: 992-4. The Review of English Studies. link
  • Spiess, S. (2016). Review of Duncan Salkeld, Shakespeare Among the Courtesans: Prostitution, Literature, and Drama, 1500-1650 (Ashgate, 2012) and Kay Stanton, Shakespeare’s ‘Whores’: Erotics, Politics, and Poetics (Palgrave, 2014). Vol: 69, Issue: 3, Page: 1199-1202. Renaissance Quarterly.

Presentations

  • “The Cultural Logic of Ambivalence: Notes on the ‘Necessary Evil’’’ Spiess, S. Shakespeare Association of America, Portland, OR (2024)
  • “‘I am not what I am’: Representing Whoredom in the Early Modern Visual Arts,” Spiess, S. Northeast Modern Language Association, Boston, MA (2024)
  • “Words in Motion: A Brief Critical History” Spiess, S. Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, IL (2024)
  • Confounding Intersections: Gender, Sexuality, and the Politics of Glossing in Pericles and Edward II Spiess, S. Women and Culture in the Early Modern World Seminar, Harvard University (2023)
  • The Afterlives of English Whoredom; or, Becoming Chaste Spiess, S. Shakespeare Association of America, Minneapolis, MN (2023)
  • Confounding Relations: Glossing the Brothel in Pericles, Prince of Tyre Spiess, S. Shakespeare Association of America, Jacksonville, FL (2022)
  • Meaningful Adjacencies: Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the Terms of Glossing Spiess, S. World Shakespeare Congress, Singapore (2021)
  • Playing Whores and Strumpets; or, The Time(s) of Sexual Role-Playing Spiess, S. Shakespeare Association of America, University of Texas (2021)
  • Of Lords and Lowns: Edward II, (Dis)Orienting Relations, and the Tearmes of Queer Philology Spiess, S. Masculinities in the Premodern World, Toronto/Virtual (2020)
  • Turning Chaste: Thomas Dekker, Sexual Epistemology, and the Making of English Whoredom Spiess, S. Women’s Studies Group 1558-1837, London/Virtual (2020)
  • Un/Chaste Desires Spiess, S. The Refinery, Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, University of Massachusetts-Amherst (2019)
  • Turning Chaste: Thomas Dekker, Honest Whores, and the Conversions of English Courtesans Spiess, S. Shakespeare Seminar & Women and Culture in the Early Modern World Seminar, Harvard University (2018)
  • Judith Butler and the Queer Affects of Early Modern Intelligibility Spiess, S. Pacific Northwest Renaissance Society, University of British Columbia (2018)
  • Conversion's Queer Times Spiess, S. Early Modern Conversions, McGill University (2018)
  • Macbeth Spiess, S. Tosti-Kharas, J. Macbeth & Leadership, Babson College (2018)
  • What I Wish My Freshman Knew Spiess, S. Senior Class Meeting , Wolfeboro, NH (2018)
  • Feeling Impossible Spiess, S. Shakespeare Association of America, Los Angeles, CA (2018)
  • The (Un)Making of English Whoredom Spiess, S. Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Stanford University (2016)
  • Undoing Whoredom: Terms/Language/Othello Spiess, S. Shakespeare Association of America, New Orleans (2016)
  • The Epistemology of Violence in The Comedy of Errors Spiess, S. The World Upside-Down Conference, University of California-Merced (2015)
  • Epistemology and the Early Modern Whore Spiess, S. Renaissance Society of America , Berlin, Germany (2015)
  • The Epistemology of Violence in The Comedy of Errors Spiess, S. Shakespeare Association of America, St. Louis (2014)
  • Epistemology and the Whore: Prostitution, Archive, and Knowledge in Early Modern England Spiess, S. Shakespeare Association of America, Toronto (2013)
  • The Terms of Whoredom; Or, the Sex of Early Modern Language Spiess, S. Shakespeare Association of America, Boston (2012)
  • The Measure of Sexual Memory Spiess, S. Shakespeare Association of America, Bellevue (2011)
  • The Prostitution of Poesy Spiess, S. Thinking about Representation in Late Medieval and Renaissance England, Kingston, ONT (2010)
  • Romancing Shakespeare: Gender, Purity, and Author(ity) in the Quest for Pericles Spiess, S. Society for Textual Scholarship, Boston (2008)
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Professional Memberships

  • Society for the Study of Early Modern Women (2017 - Present)
  • Modern Language Association (2013 - Present)
  • Renaissance Society of America (2012 - Present)
  • Shakespeare Association of America (2008 - Present)