USC College Department of English


Heather James

Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature

Contact Information
E-mail: hjames@usc.edu
Phone: (213) 740-3740
Office: THH 417
Office Hours: M 12-1, W 1-2 and by appointment : 12-1, 1-2

 

Education

  • M.A. Latin Literature, University of California, Berkeley
  • Ph.D. Comparative Literature, English Renaissance, University of California, Berkeley
  • B.A. English, Latin, University of California, Santa Cruz

Academic Appointment, Affiliation, and Employment History

Tenure Track Appointments
  • Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Southern California, 06/01/1998-  
  • Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Southern California, 08/01/1995-06/01/1998  
  • Assistant Professor, Yale University, 06/01/1991-06/01/1995  
Visiting and Temporary Appointments
  • Associate Professor, The Bread Loaf School of English , 2004-2007  
  • Visiting Associate Professor, Claremont Graduate University, Spring 2004   

Description of Research

Summary Statement of Research Interests
Heather James' research focuses on literature and culture of the English Renaissance, Latin literature, Italian Renaissance literature and Classical Imitation. She studies the literary and institutional invention of Tudor and Stuart England and has written extensively about Shakespeare. Her fields of interest are Critical Theory, Gender Studies, Renaissance, Rhetoric

Conferences and Other Presentations

Conference Presentations
  • "Commonplaces, Inventories, and the Forms of Authorship", Forms of Early Modern Writing Colloquium, in association with the Columbia Rare Books Library, Lecture/Seminar, , Columbia Rare Books Library, Columbia University, Invited, 04/25/2008  
  • "Arrows from God’s Quiver: the Political Culture of Sententiae in Elizabethan Drama", 1601: The Revolt of the Earl of Essex, Talk/Oral Presentation, , Princeton University, Department of History, Invited, 05/18/2007-05/19/2007  
  • "Sentencing Ovid", Shakespeare Association of America, Plenary Session, , San Diego, SAA, Invited, 04/06/2007  
  • "Grace Notes", Conference in Honor of Harry Berger, Jr. , Talk/Oral Presentation, , University of South Carolina, Department of English, Invited, 10/12/2006-10/13/2006  
  • "Ovid on the Margins", Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, Keynote Lecture, , Pepperdine University, PAMLA, Invited, 11/12/2005  
  • "Metamorphoses of Faith in Seventeenth-Century England", Transformations, Talk/Oral Presentation, , Clark Library, Clark Library, Invited, 10/01/2005  
Other Presentations
  • "Othello, Plutarch, Foucault", Invited lecture, Claremont Graduate University, CGU, 10/01/2007  
  • "Shakespeare and the Liberty of Speech", Distinguished Guest Lecturer , Department of English , Reed College, 04/19/2007  
  • "What’s Love Got to Do With It?: Paradise Lost, Revolutionary Thought, and the Renaissance Ovid", Distinguished Guest Lecturer , Department of English, Reed College, 04/19/2007  
  • "Ben Jonson and the Early Modern Trial of Ovid", Invited lecture, Folger Shakespeare Library, Folger Shakespeare Library, 05/19/2006  
  • "The Liberty of Speech in Early Modern England", Invited lecture, Departments of English and Romance Studies, Duke University, 03/29/2006  
  • "'The Ethnicke Muse’: Pagan Inspiration at Great Tew", Invited lecture, Colloquium on British Studies, Yale University, 09/26/2005  
  • "Spenser and the Gods", Invited lecture, Department of English, St Andrews, 04/13/2005  

Publications

Book
  • James, H. (2005). Norton Anthology of Western Literature, 8th Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
  • James, H. (2001). Norton Anthology of World Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
  • James, H. (1997). Shakespeare's Troy: Drama, Politics, and the Translation of Empire. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. One of twenty-four scholarly books on "Medieval & Renaissance" literature selected for Choice’s Outstanding Academic Titles, 1998-2002..
Book Chapter
  • James, H. (2009). Coriolanus: A Modern Perspective. pp. 297-308. Folger Shakespeare Edition.
  • James, H. (2009). Shakespeare’s Classical Plays, in the Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, eds. Margreta de Grazia and Stanley Wells. pp. 153-167.
  • James, H. (2009). Ovid in Renaissance English Literature. pp. 423-41. Blackwell Companion to Ovid, ed. Peter E. Knox.
  • James, H. (2007). Shakespeare and Classicism. pp. p. 202-220. Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Poetry, ed. Patrick Cheney.
  • James, H. (2004). "Shakespeare's Learned Heroines in Ovid's Schoolroom," 2004. Cambridge University Press.
  • James, H. (1996). The Politics of Display and the Anamorphic Subjects of Antony and Cleopatra. Prentice-Hall: Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s Late Tragedies, ed. Susanne Wofford.
  • James, H. (1991). Cultural Disintegration in Titus Andronicus: Mutilating Titus, Vergil and Rome (reprint). (Vol. NA). Cambridge University Press.
Journal Article
  • James, H. (2008). Shakespeare, the Classics, and the Forms of Authorship. Shakespeare Studies. Vol. 36, pp. 80-89.
  • James, H. (2006). The Poet's Toys: Christopher Marlowe and the Liberties of Erotic Elegy. Modern Language Quarterly. Vol. 67:1, pp. 103-127.
  • James, H. (2003). Ovid and the Question of Politics in Early Modern England. English Literary History. Vol. vol. 70, pp. pp. 343-73..
  • James, H. (2003). Royal Jokes and Sovereign Mystery in Castiglione's Il Cortegiano and Marguerite de Navarre's Heptaméron. Modern Language Quarterly. Vol. vol. 64.4, pp. pp. 399-425.
  • James, H. (2001). Dido’s Ear: Tragedy and the Politics of Response. Shakespeare Quarterly/Folger Shakespeare Library. Vol. vol. 52.3, pp. pp.360-82.
  • James, H. (1993). Milton's Eve, Romance, and Ovidian Poetics. Comparative Literature/American Literature Association. Vol. vol. 45, pp. pp. 121-45.

New Courses Developed

  • The Liberty of Speech in Shakespeare’s England, English, Spring 2009   
  • Metamorphosis from Ovid to Modernity, General Education, Spring 2008   
  • Ovid in Seventeenth-Century England, English, Students spent the first third of the semester studying Ovid's Metamorphoses, in modern translation and in the translations by Golding and Sandys. The students then worked in pairs on independent research on the literary and cultural uses of a single mythological figure from Ovid's poem (e.g., Daphne, Medusa, Medea, Orpheus, etc.). In conference with me, and with the aid of EEBO, they chose new texts for the class to read and took the initiative in class discussion. Their choice of texts (hard!) ranged from Greene, Gascoigne, and Spenser to Knevet, Oldham, and Hobbes., Spring 2007   

Honors and Awards

  • USC Center for Excellence in Teaching, Faculty Fellow, 1/2009-12/2010  
  • Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant, 2007-2008   
  • American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship Recipient, 2005-2006  
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship Recipient, Folger Shakespeare Library, 2005-2006  
  • H.P. Kraus Fellowship at the Beinecke Library, 2005  
  • Huntington Library Research Fellowship Recipient, 2004  
  • USC Center for Excellence in Teaching, Faculty Fellow, 2003-2004   
  • USC or School/Dept Award for Teaching, Award for Excellence in Teaching in General Education, 2001  
  • USC Innovative Teaching Award, Bringing Renaissance Drama to General Education, 2000  
  • USC or School/Dept Award for Teaching, Arnold L. and Lois S. Graves Prize for Teaching in the Humanities, 2000  
  • Sarai Ribicoff Award for Undergraduate Teaching at Yale College, 1993-1994   

Service to the University

Committees
  • Chair, President of the Faculty Council of the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, 2000-2001   
Other Service to the University
  • USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute. Renaissance Literature Seminar on the topic of "Word and Image." Invited speakers: Margaret W. Ferguson, Harry Berger, Jr., Patricia Fumerton, Ann Rosalind Jones, Jody Greene, and Carla Mazzio., 2009-2010   
  • USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute. Renaissance Literature Seminar on the topic of "Literature Beyond Words." Invited speakers: Gail Kern Paster, Anston Bosman, Joe Loewenstein,Melissa Sanchez, Bruce Smith, Heidi Brayman Hackel., 2008-2009   
  • USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute. Renaissance Literature Seminar on the topic of "Legacies, Connections, and Transmissions." Invited speakers: Claire McEachern, Nigel Smith, Alan Stewart, and Susanne Wofford., 2007-2008   
  • USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute. Renaissance Literature Seminar on the topic of "Literary Theory in the 21st Century." Invited speakers: Julia Lupton, Dympna Callaghan, Chris Warley, Lowell Gallagher, and Richard Halpern., 2006-2007   
  • Introduced and organized lecture by Geoffrey Hartman, "The Holocaust, History-Writing, and Fiction: Methodological Reflections." Sponsored by the Departments of English and Comparative Literature and the Shoah Foundation. , 01/25/2007  

Service to the Profession

Conferences Organized
  • Invited Organizer and Co-Chair with A. Braunmuller, Representing Politics on Shakespeare’s Stage , Huntington Library, A major conference on the representation of politics on the Elizabethan and Stuart stage. Invited speakers include Oliver Arnold, Karen Britland, Martin Butler, Jean Howard, Lorna Hutson, András Kiséry, Peter Lake, Michael Neill, Stephen Orgel, Emma Smith, and Adam Zucker., 09/25/2009-09/26/2009  
Editorships and Editorial Boards
  • Editorial Board, Shakespeare Quarterly, 04/2008-  
  • Shakespeare Yearkbook, 2003-  
Professional Offices
  • Board of Trustees, Shakespeare Association of America, 04/2008-  
  • Chair and member, Executive Board of the Comparative Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Literature Division of the Modern Language Association, 2005-2009, 2005-2009  
  • Executive Board, International Spenser Society, 2004-2007  
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