Dr Abigail Shinn
Staff details
I was born in London and educated at state schools in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk before studying for my BA at the University of Sussex. I joined the department of English and Creative Writing at Goldsmiths as a Lecturer in Early Modern Literature and Culture in 2017 having previously worked at the universities of St Andrews, Leeds, and York. I am a member of the executive committee of the International Spenser Society and a member of the Society of Renaissance Studies and the Renaissance Society of America.
Academic qualifications
- PhD: ‘Edmund Spenser and the Popular Press’ (Sussex) 2010
- MA in Early Modern Literature and Culture (Sussex) 2006
- BA Hons English Literature (Sussex) 2005
Teaching and Supervision
I currently convene the modules Renaissance Worlds (EN52227D/EN53327B) and Shakespeare (EN52211C).
I welcome research projects in the following areas:
Conversion Narratives
Early Modern Life Writing
Conversion and drama
Edmund Spenser
Shakespeare and Film
Early Modern Popular Culture
Early Modern Poetry and Prose
Research interests
My work considers the intersection of culture and form in the early modern period. I am particularly interested in texts that reside outside of the canon and outside of perceived notions of the literary. These include conversion narratives (religious life writing recounting a change of faith or intensification of religious feeling) and popular print. In tandem, I also work on elite writers who self-consciously borrow from or imitate aspects of popular culture. My first book, Conversion Narratives in Early Modern England: Tales of Turning (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), is a study of the rhetorical tropes and narrative typologies which characterise conversion narratives in the years 1580-1660. I am currently working on two book projects. Spenser’s Popular Voices: Culture and Play focuses on Spenser’s interest in cultural play and his adoption of models and practices associated with non-elite modes of storytelling. The Architecture of Conversion and the Early Modern Stage explores drama's engagement with the legacy of the Reformation through the lens of the architecture of conversion. It argues that in the 1590s and early 1600s dramatists made imaginative use of the complex dilemmas posed by such converted structures, which included playhouses, drawing attention to the uncomfortable and inconvenient instabilities that they manifest. I also have a side project exploring queer temporalities. My first attempt at reading unbound by traditional concepts of time period is an exploration of the life writings of the early modern Catholic convert Sir Tobie Matthew alongside the work of the contemporary novelist Jhumpa Lahiri.
Publications and research outputs
Book
Shinn, Abigail. 2018. Conversion Narratives in Early Modern England: Tales of Turning. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783319965772
Edited Book
Shinn, Abigail; Hadfied, Andrew and Dimmock, Matthew, eds. 2014. The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Culture in Early Modern England. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. ISBN 9781409436843
Edited Journal
Shinn, Abigail and Vine, Angus, eds. 2014. The Copious Text: Encyclopaedic Books in Early Modern England, Renaissance Studies, 28(2). 0269-1213
Shinn, Abigail and Mazur, Peter, eds. 2013. Narrating Conversion in the Early Modern World, Journal of Early Modern History, (17). 1385-3783
Book Section
Shinn, Abigail. 2023. Conversion. In: Margaret King, ed. Oxford Bibliographies in Renaissance and Reformation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shinn, Abigail. 2018. The Senses and the Seventeenth-Century English Conversion Narrative. In: Robin Macdonald; Emilie Murphy and Elizabeth Swann, eds. Sensing the Sacred in Medieval and Early Modern Culture,. Abingdon, OXON: Routledge, pp. 99-116. ISBN 1472454669
Shinn, Abigail. 2017. Gender and Reproduction in the Spirituall Experiences. In: Helen Smith and Simon Ditchfield, eds. Conversions: Gender and Religious Change in Early Modern Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 81-104. ISBN 978-0-7190-9915-1
Shinn, Abigail. 2017. Father Figures: Paternal Politics in the Conversion Narratives of Thomas Gage and James Wadsworth. In: Hannah Crawforth and Sarah Lewis, eds. Family Politics in Early Modern Literature. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 211-228. ISBN 978-1-137-51143-0
Shinn, Abigail. 2014. Cultures of Mending. In: Abigail Shinn; Andrew Hadfield and Matthew Dimmock, eds. The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Culture in Early Modern England. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, pp. 235-252. ISBN 978-1-4094-3684-3
Shinn, Abigail. 2013. Spenser's Popular Intertexts. In: Emma Smith and Andy Kesson, eds. The Elizabethan Top Ten: Defining Print Popularity in Early Modern England. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, pp. 157-168. ISBN 978-1-4094-4029-1
Shinn, Abigail. 2009. 'Extraordinary discourses of vnnecessarie matter': Spenser's Shepheardes Calender and the Almanac Tradition. In: Andrew Hadfield and Matthew Dimmock, eds. Literature and Popular Culture in Early Modern England. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, pp. 137-150. ISBN 978-0-7546-6580-9
Article
Shinn, Abigail. 2023. Spenser's Popular Pastoral: Hodgepodges and Genre Trouble in The Shepheardes Calender. Sillages Critique, ISSN 1272-3819
Shinn, Abigail. 2023. 'Come to my house': The Architecture of Conversion and Marlowe's The Jew of Malta. Modern Philology, ISSN 0026-8232
Shinn, Abigail. 2022. Spenser with Huizinga. Spenser Studies, ISSN 0195-9468
Shinn, Abigail. 2018. Searching for Spenser's Popular Voice. Spenser Review, 48(1.3),
Shinn, Abigail. 2017. Dreaming Converts in the Seventeenth Century: The Case of Philip Dandulo and Thomas Warmstry's The Baptized Turk. Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, 17(1), pp. 97-119. ISSN 1553-3786
Shinn, Abigail. 2014. Managing Copiousness for Pleasure and Profit: William Painter's Palace of Pleasure. Renaissance Studies, 28(2), pp. 205-224. ISSN 0269-1213
Further profile content
Featured publications
2018:
- Conversion Narratives in Early Modern England: Tales of Turning
Palgrave Macmillan (2018): A book-length study of conversion narratives from 1580-1660 focusing on the relationship between conversion and rhetoric.
2014:
- Research Companion to Popular Culture in Early Modern England
Ashgate (2014): Edited collection bringing together work on popular culture in early modern England.
2017:
‘Dreaming Converts in the Seventeenth Century: The Case of Philip Dandulo and Thomas Warmstry’s The Baptized Turk
Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 17.1 (2017): Exploration of a dream embedded in the description of the baptism and conversion of a Muslim man in early modern London.
2014:
‘Managing Copiousness for Pleasure and Profit: William Painter’s Palace of Pleasure’
Renaissance Studies 28 (2014): Article analysing the copiousness of William Painter's collection of novelle The Palace of Pleasure.
Administrative Roles
ECW Senior Tutor
ECW library liaison officer
