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Professor Charlotte Scott

Staff details

Position Professor of Shakespeare Studies, Senior Tutor
Department English and Creative Writing
Email c.scott (@gold.ac.uk)
Phone +44 (0)20 7919 7475
Professor Charlotte Scott

Charlotte was appointed to the English and Creative Writing department at Goldsmiths in 2006. She has taught across the undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes with a specialist interest in Shakespeare and the early modern period. Her research has focused on material culture and books as well as the natural world and the relationships between the human and non-human worlds. Her most recent work has explored constructions of childhood on the early modern stage as well as the role of stories in the Shakespearean imagination.

Charlotte has been senior tutor for the English department for nearly 10 years, during which time she has focused on creating student communities, building student networks of support and supporting retention, well being and compassion led teaching practices as well as setting up peer mentoring and student facing support groups. Alongside her teaching and research, Charlotte develops workshops and courses with women in prison to support rehabilitation.

Academic qualifications

  • PhD (University of Warwick) 2005
  • MA in Shakespeare (University of London) 2001
  • BA (Hons) University of London 2000

Teaching and Supervision

  • Shakespeare
  • The Outsider in Shakespeare
  • Text and Performance
  • Shakespeare and the Early Modern

Research interests

My research is primarily focused on Shakespeare and social process, both in relation to the early modern period and to our own. My work has explored the multiple and complex ways in which Shakespeare constructs meeting points between culture and socio-economic developments.

I have traced this work across the evolution of early modern media, agrarian and economic development, social status, childhood and gender. My first monograph, Shakespeare and the Idea of the Book (Oxford, 2007) was the first book length study to address the relationship between the figurative and material texts on Shakespeare's stage as well as in the emerging and burgeoning world of early modern media.

In Shakespeare's Nature: from Cultivation to Culture (Oxford, 2014), I explored the development of human intervention in the natural world and the impact this has on the creation of a new language of both nature and culture. More recently, The Child in Shakespeare (Oxford, 2018, paperback, 2021) analyses the figure of the child on the early modern stage in relation to specialised forms of human status and the construction of difference.

My current projects are focused on story telling and the motility of allusion, story, narrative discourse and the multiple ways in which different genres, communities, characters and time periods represent as well as construct their stories.

I am especially interested in the power of story to both represent and repress marginal voices. I have developed and delivered a number of Shakespeare and story projects in women's prison and continue to access and understand literature in relation to social justice.

Publications

Book

Scott, Charlotte . 2018. The Child in Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198828556

Scott, Charlotte . 2014. Shakespeare's Nature: From Cultivation to Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199685080

Scott, Charlotte . 2007. Shakespeare and the Idea of the Book. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199212101

Edited Book

Bate, Jonathan; Rasmussen, Eric and Scott, Charlotte , eds. 2006. The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0230200951

Book Section

Scott, Charlotte . 2017. Incapable and Shallow Innocents. In: Richard Preiss and Deanne Williams, eds. Childhood and Education on the Early Modern Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 58-78. ISBN 9781107094185

Scott, Charlotte . 2017. Incapable and Shallow Innocents: Mourning Shakespeare’s Children in Richard III and The Winter’s Tale. In: Richard Preiss and Deanne Williams, eds. Childhood, Education and the Stage in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 58-78. ISBN 9781316145685

Scott, Charlotte . 2017. Shakespeare's Theatre, Company and Rivals. In: Kirilka Stavreva, ed. British Literature Volume 4. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale.

Scott, Charlotte . 2015. Polyolbion. In: , ed. The Faerie Land and Poly Olbion. Oxford: Flash of Splendour.

Scott, Charlotte . 2013. '"To show ... and so to publish": Reading, Writing and Performing in the Narrative Poems'. In: Jonathan Post, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare's Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 377-395. ISBN 978-0199607747

Scott, Charlotte . 2012. Reading Strange Matter: Shakespeare's Last Plays and the Book of Revelation. In: Andrew Powers, ed. Late Shakespeare, 1608–1613. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 158-171. ISBN 9781107016194

Scott, Charlotte . 2012. Strange Matter: Shakespeare's Late Plays and the Book of Revelation. In: , ed. Shakespeare’s Late Plays: Texts and Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Scott, Charlotte . 2011. 'Dark Matter: the Forest in Titus Andronicus and A Midsummer Night's Dream'. In: , ed. Shakespeare Survey. UNSPECIFIED.

Scott, Charlotte . 2011. 'To show ... and so to publish': Reading, Writing and Performing in the Narrative Poems. In: Jonathan Post, ed. The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare's Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, xx.

Scott, Charlotte . 2009. William Shakespeare. In: Jay Parini, ed. Great British Writers, Retrospective supplement. III Andover: Gale, Cengage Learning, pp. 269-288.

Scott, Charlotte . 2009. 'William Shakespeare'. In: Jay Parini, ed. British Writers: Retrospective Supplement III. Charles Scribners & Sons. ISBN 978-0684315997

Scott, Charlotte . 2008. 'Still Life?: Anthropocentrism and the Fly in Titus Andronicus and Volpone'. In: Peter Holland, ed. Shakespeare Survey, 61. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521898881

Article

Scott, Charlotte . 2021. The opposite of white: apollo's crow and learning to be silent in King Lear’. Textual Practice, ISSN 0950-236X

Scott, Charlotte . 2020. ‘The story shall be changed’: antique fables and agency in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare Survey, 73, pp. 119-128. ISSN 0080-9152

Scott, Charlotte . 2019. Talking back to Shakespeare: theatre in women’s prisons. Red Pepper(226), pp. 52-55. ISSN 1353-7024

Scott, Charlotte . 2016. Shakespeare and the Making of History. Voices,

Scott, Charlotte . 2011. Dark Matter: Shakespeare's Foul Dens and Forests. Shakespeare Survey, ISSN 0080-1952

Scott, Charlotte . 2008. Still Life? Anthropocentrism and the Fly in Titus Andronicus and Volpone. Shakespeare Survey, 61, pp. 256-268. ISSN 0080-9152

Scott, Charlotte . 2008. Shakespeare's Books: Reading Dumb Eloquence and Speaking Breasts. Literature Compass, 5(3), pp. 603-617.

Scott, Charlotte . 2008. 'Shakespeare's Books: Reading Dumb Eloquence and Speaking Breasts'. Literature Compass, 5(3), pp. 603-617. ISSN 1741-4113

Film/Video

Scott, Charlotte . 2016. Henry V and the Natural World.

Scott, Charlotte . 2016. Shakespeare Lives.

Scott, Charlotte . 2016. Shakespeare and Empathy.

Scott, Charlotte . 2016. Shakespeare and Nature.

Scott, Charlotte . 2016. Shakespeare's Sonnets.

Further profile content

Featured publications

2007: Shakespeare and The Idea of the Book
Shakespeare and the Idea of the Book explores the role of texts, both material and figurative on Shakespeare's stage through allusions, metaphors, props, books, references and images.

2014: Shakespeare's Nature: from Cultivation to Culture
This work explores the evolution of a language of culture through the representation of nature on the early modern stage.

2018: The Child in Shakespeare
The first book length study to explore the figure and image of the child as a special status in the early modern imagination.

2020: 'The Story Shall be Changed': Antique Fables and Agency in A Midsummer Night's Dream
This article explores the power of allusion and story to reference alternative narratives as well as voices in Dream.

2021: 'The Opposite of White': Apollo's Crow and Learning to be Silent in King Lear

Professional projects

Let's change the story was as an Arts Council England funded project which explored the role of narrative in relation to criminal justice and women's incarceration. Working in HMP Styal, I developed a project in which the women rewrote Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream to explore their own voices, experiences, fears and fantasies in a contemporary setting. An original version of the story, written by the women, was performed in front of inmates, officers and govenors.

What you Will was another Art's Council England funded project which was based in a women's centre in Bootle. Over the course of project we explored the stories of gender, performance, desire, social mobility and comedy through a rewriting of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. A final, adapted and original production was performed by the members of the women's centre to a local audience of community users, support workers, councillors and friends.

Journey Within: this project developed over two years of the arts awards was held at and supported by the Woking branch of Women in Prison. Exploring various and different ways of responding to emotional trauma and feeling, we developed a series of monologues through which the women involved could find a space to be heard as they were and for themselves.

Women, Witches and Wonder: this project developed at HMP Eastwood Park explores the role of gender in the creation of hysteria, witches and fear. Working with Shakespeare's Macbeth and Arthur Miller's The Crucible, we have begun to interrogate the historical functions of witches in relation to gendered constructions of fear and anxiety and how women are written into stories in which they have no voice. This project continues to run at HMP Styal.

Media engagements

2016: Shakespeare's stories
This video explores how Shakespeare borrows stories to make them his own.

2016: Shakespeare and Nature
This short video explores some of the images and allusions in Shakespeare's work.

2016: Shakespeare's Sonnets and Nature
This short video explores some of the images of nature in Shakespeare's sonnets

2000: Shakespeare and the Natural World.
This video explores nature in relation to Shakespeare's Henry V.

Conferences and talks

2021: The World Shakespeare Association
Seeming Truth: Aesop and allusion in The Merchant of Venice

2021: In Conversation at The Globe
How can we better understand climate crisis in relation to A Midsummer Night's Dream.

2021: Building communities: activism, inclusion and diversity.
TORCH panel discussion

2020: What's the story? Ardingley Shakespeare Festival
Shakespeare and the ambiguous world of multiple narratives.

2020: All's well that Ends Well
The Globe Theatre.

Grants and awards

2008: Arts and Humanities Research Council
Research Fellowship

2019: Art's Council England
Creative project

2014: Student Led Teaching Award
Outstanding Contribution to communties

Articles related to Professor Charlotte Scott