ACMRS (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies)

07/10/2026

Save the date! Early Modern Race and Disability: Intersections and Beyond September 2, 2026
In recent years, the study of early modern literature and culture has become increasingly informed by the insights of critical race studies; in a parallel development, scholars are also showing a growing commitment to exploring disability in the early modern world. This conversation puts premodern critical race studies and early modern disability studies in conversation — to explore not only the specific intersections between race and disability, but also to theorize how the two fields’ shared commitment to interrogating forms of early modern difference might be mutually-informing more broadly.
Register for this webinar today! https://na.eventscloud.com/race-and-disability

07/02/2026

The narrator of Samuel Rowlands’s “A Courtesan’s Humor” (1607) is a woman who manages a brothel. The poem is structured as a first-person account of her profession, and unlike the cony-catching pamphlets of the period, which typically expose the tricks of s*x workers from the outside, this poem adopts the courtesan’s own perspective. Whether or not Rowlands intended it, the poem offers a portrayal of s*x work as labor governed by market forces, professional risk, and the pragmatics of survival. Read more Early Modern works of women's voices penned by male authors in the new anthology HE WORDS ME, edited by Catherine Loomis—free from ACMRS Press open access: https://asu.pressbooks.pub/he-words-me/chapter/382/

07/01/2026

Four of the boldest reinventions of Shakespeare on the US–Mexico border — a narco Macbeth, a post-apocalyptic Henry IV, a q***r Hamlet on the turntables, and a Tempest in a hurricane — now free for everyone to read in the third volume of The Bard in the Borderlands. Dig in now: https://ow.ly/vKTC50ZjlWQ

06/25/2026

To understand our libraries and editorial traditions today, Emma Smith argues we must confront how deeply these systems of value were shaped by the economics and injustices of the transatlantic slave trade. https://throughlines.org/suite-content/slavery-sugar-and-the-value-of-shakespeare

06/24/2026

How lucky are we to call Ty Defoe a colleague and friend? From his interview with KJZZ on his multimedia, one-person puppet show SKELETON CANOE: "I feel like ancient teachings of culture, there’s a lot to be learned, and I think love is for everybody. I think care is for everybody, respect is for everybody. And I think pieces like this when brought into the community really teach everybody about hope, love and understanding."

An interdisciplinary artist with ties to Arizona State University will be performing this weekend at the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, Connecticut.

06/23/2026

Join the RaceB4Race Mentorship Network to develop your research and academic career alongside a leading scholar in premodern critical race studies. Mentees are matched with a mentor for quarterly virtual meetings over two semesters to discuss career development, work-life balance, writing, publishing, and cutting-edge research happening within the field of premodern critical race studies. Applications due June 26! Apply now: https://acmrs.asu.edu/RaceB4Race/mentorship-network

06/22/2026

He Words Me: Men Writing as Women in Early Modern England, edited by Catherine Loomis, collects approximately 300 poems and short prose works from early modern England in which male authors adopt the voice of a female narrator. Most of the texts in this collection have never been previously collected and are difficult to access even for scholars with institutional archive subscriptions. Read online for free now: https://asu.pressbooks.pub/he-words-me/

04/23/2026

Happy birthday Shakespeare! Who wants a triple-serving of Titus to celebrate? Ayanna Thompson has three new pieces on Throughlines unpacking the deep questions that arise when you wipe away all the blood in Shakespeare's goriest tragedy.
https://www.throughlines.org/suite-content/indecourm-and-empire-in-titus-andronicus

04/22/2026

Seven new resources from Cassander L. Smith on race, protest, and respectability politics in early American and early African American literature.

You'll want to check out this annotated syllabus on the Black protest tradition that opens with a question most students think they can answer but can’t: is there really a right way to protest? Smith traces the answer from Kendrick Lamar back to Olaudah Equiano, through Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Toni Morrison.

Also included: two graduate syllabi on race in early America and premodern critical race studies, a classroom activity where students remix Phillis Wheatley’s poetry to address current events, and video lectures that use black-ish as an entry point to 18th-century literature.

All free. As always.

Smith, Cassander L. "Black protest tradition in early African American literature." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/black-protest-tradition-in-early-african-american-literature. [Date accessed].

04/02/2026

As a curator, Andrea Achi learned that accepting museums don’t always have all the facts can actually create a better space for learning. Good curation is about creating an environment that invites questions, not just answers.

https://www.throughlines.org/suite-content/curating-from-the-lens-of-critical-race-studies