Teaching Assistant Professor
2018, PhD English, Pennsylvania State University
2011, MA English, University of Wisconsin-Madison
2008, BA English & History, University of Michigan
Bio
Mike is an early modernist at work on his current book project, The Island Nation and Its Discontents: Transnationalism in English Renaissance Literature. Focusing on Shakespeare’s France and Scotland, Spenser’s Ireland, Greville’s Low Countries, and Milton’s Italy, this project reassesses the significance of certain key early modern internationalisms—humanist, Protestant, republican, and poetic—in the literary construction of “England” by exploring how English authors challenged the archetype of the “elect island nation” through transnational and participatory models of nationhood. Portions of this study have appeared as articles in Shakespeare Quarterly and Sidney Journal, and a separate essay on Milton’s Lycidas has been published in Studies in Philology.
Publications:
- “Shakespeare’s Bastard Nation: Skepticism and the English Isle in King John,” Shakespeare Quarterly 1 (2018): 3–34.
- “‘Who would not sing for Lycidas?’: The Young Milton’s Satirical Reform of the Justa Edouardo King,” Studies in Philology 1 (2018): 154–92.
- “‘Prince and No-Prince’: William of Orange and the Politics of Friendship in Greville’s Dedication to Sir Philip Sidney,” in “Fulke Greville and the Arts,” ed. Freya Sierhuis and Brian Cummings, special issue, Sidney Journal1/2 (2017): 95–118.
- “From Virtue to Virtus, From Nation to Empire: Chastity, Insularity, and British-Roman Transnationalism in Cymbeline,” in Shakespeare’s Virtuous Theater: Power, Capacity, and the Good, ed. Julia Reinhard Lupton and Kent Lehnhof. Essay in forthcoming collection from Edinburgh University Press.
- “The Call from Inside the House: Race, Transnationalism, & the Cannibalized Past in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Rats in the Walls.’” Submitted. 9,000 words.
Teaching Awards
- Best English TA, Madison Undergraduate Society for English, UW-Madison (Spring 2015)
- Honored Instructor Award, UW-Madison (Spring 2015)
Awards
- Big 10 Emerging Scholar Lecturer (Fall 2018)
- Raymond Lombra Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Research in the Humanities, College of the Liberal Arts, Penn State (Spring 2017)
- Hume Award for Outstanding Graduate Publication, Penn State (Fall 2016 and Fall 2017)
Courses Taught:
At UNC
- (ENG 225) Shakespeare
- (ENG 304) Advanced Business Writing
- (ENG 105) Introduction to Writing
Elsewhere
- British Literature, Medieval to 18th Century
- Science Fiction
- Chemistry and Literature
- Writing in the Social Sciences
- Business Writing