Professor Emma Smith

One of the foremost authorities in modern Shakespeare scholarship, Emma Smith first came to Hertford in 1997 having been a Prize Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Her research focuses on Shakespeare and on early modern drama, notably his critical history and the investment in particular readings of his plays. Recent publications in the journals Shakespeare Survey, Shakespeare Studies, and Shakespeare Quarterly all investigate the roots of scholarly consensus and how the interpretation of Shakespeare does particular cultural work at different moments. In 2016, Emma authenticated the newest discovery of a Shakespeare First Folio, which was found in a collection at Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute. Emma is a regular contributor to BBC Radio, the University’s online podcasts and lectures, and frequently writes for the college’s own publications. In addition to her academic duties, she is also Tutor for Equality & Diversity, and Fellow Librarian.

Professor Charlotte Brewer

Charlotte has been a fellow at Hertford since 1990. Her research centres on the history of the Oxford English Dictionary, from its beginnings in the late 1850s up to and including more recent major online revisions. She is investigating the changes now being made to OED’s vastly influential picture of the language by the ambitious revision of the dictionary underway at Oxford since the 1990s (due to be complete in a couple of decades or so). Charlotte is particularly interested in the ways that OED has recorded the language of canonical literary writers – Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, and so on – and whether the plethora of quotation evidence in OED from such sources tells you more about the history of the language or the history of the OED itself.

Dr David Dwan

David’s research addresses the relationship between literature and intellectual history (particularly moral and political philosophy) from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. He has a particular interest in Irish writing.  His first book – The Great Community (Field Day, 2008) – examined the evolution of cultural nationalism in Ireland.  W. B. Yeats was the central figure of the book, but he also considered some of his most important intellectual influences, from Edmund Burke to the Young Ireland movement of the 1840s.  Since then David has co-edited (with Christopher Insole) The Cambridge Companion to Edmund Burke and published articles on a variety of figures from Rousseau to Woolf.  His most recent monograph Liberty, Equality and Humbug: Orwell’s Political Ideals was published by Oxford University Press in 2018.

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