USC College Department of English


Bruce Smith

Dean's Professor of English

Contact Information
E-mail: brucesmi@usc.edu
Phone: (213) 740-2814
Office: THH 404G

LINKS
Curriculum Vitae
 

Education

  • B.A. English, Tulane University, New Orleans, 6/1968
  • M.A. English, University of Rochester, 6/1971
  • Ph.D. Medieval, Renaissance, 17th Century, Drama, University of Rochester, 6/1973

Academic Appointment, Affiliation, and Employment History

Tenure Track Appointments
  • Professor of English, Georgetown University, 09/01/1987-08/31/2003  
  • Associate Professor of English, Georgetown University, 09/01/1978-08/31/1987  
  • Assistant Professor of English, Georgetown University, 09/01/1972-08/31/1978  
Visiting and Temporary Appointments
  • Director, "Shakespeare in an Age of Visual Culture" seminar series, Folger Institute, 1998-1999   
  • Visiting Professor of English, University of Hawaii, Manoa, Spring 1998   
  • Director, "The O-Factor: Voice, Media, and Community in Early Modern England" seminar, Folger Institute, Fall 1994   
  • Visiting Professor of English, University of Colorado at Boulder, Fall 1993   
Other Employment
  • Faculty member, Middlebury College, Bread Loaf School of English, 06/01/1994-  

Description of Research

Summary Statement of Research Interests
Smith studies the literature and culture of early modern England, including Shakespeare, gender, sexuality, acoustic ecology and historical phenomenology. Among his six published books, "The Acoustic World of Early Modern England” won the 2000 Roland H. Bainton Prize for Literature, attracting the attention of theater professionals, communications specialists and musicologists. At USC College, Smith hopes to develop courses that interest English students, as well as students of music and drama. His current work explores what it was like to live in the kind of body imagined by early modern medicine and to perceive the world through that body. He is particulary interested in how important the senses and the passions were to perception before Descartes divorced the thinking mind from the sensing body in the middle of the 17th century.
Research Keywords
Shakespeare, Renaissance drama, visual culture, acoustic ecology, gender, sexuality, phenomenology

Funded Research

Contracts and Grants Awarded
  • Digital Humanities Start-up Grant (National Endowment for the Humanities), Bruce R. Smith, Katherine Rowe, Bryn Mawr College, $26,000, 10/01/2009-12/31/2010  

Conferences and Other Presentations

Conference Presentations
  • ""The Congeniality of Shakespeare's Genius"", The Creativity of Genius (year-long lecture series), Lecture/Seminar, Paper, USC, Templeton Foundation, Invited, 2008-2009   
  • ""Ambient Looking"", "Theatre: Crossroads of the Humanities", keynote address, , Chicago, IL, Northwestern University, Interdisciplinary PhD Pro, Invited, Spring 2008   
  • ""How Should One Read a Shakespeare Sonnet?"", Australia and New Zealand Shakespeare Association annual meeting, keynote address, , Otago University, Dunedin, New Zealand, Australia and New Zealand Shakespeare Association, Spring 2008   
  • ""'What Means This Noise?': Sound and Voice in the Performing of Shakespeare's Scripts"", Deutsche Shakespeare Gesellschaft, keynote address at opening ceremonies, , Bochum, Germany, Deutsche Shakespeare Gesellschaft and Stadt Bochum, Invited, Spring 2007   
  • ""The Pro- in Shakespeare's Pronouns"", The English Institute, Talk/Oral Presentation, , Harvard University, The English Institute, Invited, Fall 2006   

Publications

Book
  • Smith, B. R. (2009). The Key of Green: Passion and Perception in Renaissance Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Smith, B. R. PHenomenal Shakespeare. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Smith, B. R. (2001). William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night: Text and Contexts (Boston:Bedford-St. Martin's Press, February 2001)xiv + 410 pp. Boston: Bedford-St. Martins Press.
  • Smith, B. R. (2000). Shakespeare and Masculinity (Oxford:Oxford Univ. Press, 2000),ix + 182pp. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Smith, B. R. (1999). The Acoustic World of Early Modern England:Attending to the O-Factor (Chicago:University of Chicago Press,1999), xiv + 386 pp. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Smith, B. R. (1994). Roasting the Swan of Avon: Shakespeare's Redoubtable Enemies and Dubious Friends (Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library, and Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994) ii + 77 pp. Seattle: Folger Shakespeare Library and University of Washington Press.
  • Smith, B. R. (1991). Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare's England: A Cultural Poetics (University of Chicago Press, 1991). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Smith, B. R. (1988). Ancient Scripts and Modern Experience on the English Stage, 1500-1700 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), xii + 289 pp. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Book Chapter
  • Smith, B. R. (2008). "Resexing Lady Macbeth's Gender--And Ours," in Presentism, Gender, and Sexuality in Shakespeare, ed. Evelyn Gajowski. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Smith, B. R. (2006). "What Means This Noise?" in exhibition catalogue, "‘Noyses, sounds and sweet aires’: Music in Early Modern England," Folger Shakespeare Library. pp. p. n/a. Seattle, WA: University of Washington.
  • Smith, B. R. (2006). "Shakespeare’s Residuals," in Shakespeare and Elizabethan Popular Culture, ed. Neil Rhodes and Stuart Gillespie, Arden Companions to Shakespeare. pp. 193-217. London: Thompson.
  • Smith, B. R. (2005). "Female Impersonation in Early Modern Ballads," in Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage. pp. 284-301. Basingstoke: Ashgate.
  • Smith, B. R. (2005). "Ragging Twelfth Night:1602, 1996, 2002-2003," in A Companion to Shakespeare and Performance, ed. Barbara Hodgdon and W. B. Worthen. (Vol. 57-78). Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Smith, B. R. (2004). "E/loco/com/motion," in From Script to Stage in Early Modern England, ed. Peter Holland and Stephen Orgel. pp. 131-150. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Broadcast Media
  • Smith, B. R. (2008, October, 5). BBC Radio 3, Falling Tree Productions. London.
  • Smith, B. R. (2008, September, 29). Canadian Broadcasting System, Falling Tree Productions. St. Johns, Newfoundland.
  • Smith, B. R. (2007, April).
Journal Article
  • Smith, B. R. (2007). "THWS, CWWC, WSAF, and WSCI in the Shakespeare Book Biz". Shakespeare Studies. Vol. 35, pp. 158-185.

Honors and Awards

  • Dean's Professor of English, 2008-  
  • Prix Marulic for radio documentary "Hark!" (devised by Chris Brookes, Battery Radio, Canada, broadcast over CBC network in Canada and over BBC Radio in the UK), inspired by Bruce R. Smith, The Acoustic World of Early Modern England (1999), Spring 2009   
  • USC Distinguished Professor, 2004-2008  
  • British Academy-Huntington Library Research Fellowship, Fall 2004   
  • Guggenheim Fellowship Recipient, 2001-2002  
  • Distinguished Scholar Award, University of Rochester, Spring 2002   
  • Honorable Mention, John Ben Snow Prize, North American Conference on British Studies, 2000  
  • Roland Bainton Prize for Literature, Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, 2000  
  • International Globe Fellowship, Shakespeare's Globe, London, October 1997, 10/1997  
  • Huntington Library Research Fellowship Recipient, Mellon Research Fellowship, 1996  
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship Recipient, Folger Shakespeare Library, 1987-1988  

Service to the Profession

Committees
  • Member, Modern Language Association of America, Committee on Scholarly Editions, 2007-2008   
Editorships and Editorial Boards
  • member of editorial board, Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation, 09/2003-  
  • member of editorial board, Studies in English Literature, 09/1999-  
  • member of editorial board, Shakespeare Quarterly, 09/1991-04/2007  
  • member of editorial board, PMLA, 2000-2002  
Professional Offices
  • President, Shakespeare Association of America, 1994-1995   
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