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Professor Brett Greatley-Hirsch

Professor Brett Greatley-Hirsch

Profile

I joined Leeds in 2016 as University Academic Fellow in Textual Studies and Digital Editing. I was promoted to Associate Professor in 2021 and Professor in 2024. Previously, I was an ARC Discovery Early Career Research Fellow and Assistant Professor of English at the University of Western Australia (2013–16). I have held research fellowships in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the UK and USA. I was elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2021, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2024, and Fellow of the English Association in 2026.

Research interests

Textual studies

I am interested in the historical and material conditions of literary production, mediation, and reception; the theory and practice of textual editing in print and digital formats; editorial, book, and publishing histories; and the cultural and institutional processes of canon formation.

I am the founder and coordinating editor (with Janelle Jenstad, James Mardock, and Sarah Neville) of Digital Renaissance Editions, which publishes open-access critical editions of Renaissance drama and literature using LEMDO, a platform for developing Endings-compliant, TEI-XML editions. I contributed to Joost Daalder’s editions of The Honest Whore, Part One and Part Two for Digital Renaissance Editions, for which I am also currently editing Fair Em. I am also editing Hyde Park (with Mark Houlahan) for the Oxford Complete Works of James Shirley, Q1 Othello (with Rory Loughnane) and F1 Hamlet (with Janelle Jenstad) for The New Oxford Shakespeare: Complete Alternative Versions, and Macbeth (with Laurie Johnson) for the New Variorum Shakespeare. I am also general editor of the Bibliography of Editions of Early English Drama (BEEED), which seeks to catalogue every edition of Renaissance drama published from the eighteenth century to the present; case studies based on statistical analysis of trends and patterns in this bibliographical data form the basis of my second monograph project, Reproducing Renaissance Drama.

Computational methods and stylometry

I’m interested in digital methods for literary and textual studies, especially authorship attribution, stylometry, and computational stylistics. My first book, Style, Computers, and Early Modern Drama: Beyond Authorship (Cambridge University Press, 2017), co-authored with Hugh Craig, applies methods of computational stylistics to identify latent trends in genre, period, repertory, and authorial style across a large corpus of early modern plays. It was the first monograph of its kind in the field of Shakespeare and early modern studies and, according to one reviewer, ‘redefined the scope of computational analyses of early modern drama’ (Review of English Studies). I’ve also written widedly on the ‘digital turn’ in Shakespeare studies, from using databases to trace Shakespeare’s sources to the impact of new media on how we read, study, and perform the plays and poems.

I joined the Thomas Nashe Project as a Co-Investigator, tasked with overseeing stylometric work on Nashe’s dubia and stylistic analysis of his canonical works, and am involved in similar authorship attribution study for The New Oxford Marlowe: Complete Works, and the Oxford Complete Works of John Marston, having previously contributed to The New Oxford Shakespeare: Authorship Companion. With Rory Loughnane, I am a general editor of CADRE: Co-Authored Drama in Renaissance England, a wiki-style forum for scholars to share evidence and information about the co-authorship of plays (including practices of collaboration, revision, and adaptation) written between 1570 and 1642.

Early modern literature and culture

In addition to studying the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries (especially the drama and non-dramatic prose), I am also interested in literary, intellectual, and cultural history more broadly – especially the transmission and adaptation of texts and images. I have published on the representation of various marginal and imaginary figures (such as Jews, Catholics, witches, werewolves, and so on) in late medieval and early modern England, and other – often surprisingly related – oddities, such as spitting, bagpipes, bearded women, and dancing.

Publications

  • (with Hugh Craig) Style, Computers, and Early Modern Drama: Beyond Authorship. Cambridge UP, 2017. PDF.
  • (ed.), Digital Humanities Pedagogy: Practices, Principles, and Politics. Open Book Publishers, 2012. Web.
  • (ed., with Christopher Wortham), ‘This Earthly Stage’: World and Stage in Late Medieval and Early Modern England. Brepols, 2010. Web.

  • William Shakespeare, Othello (The First Quarto). Ed. Brett Greatley-Hirsch and Rory Loughnane. New Oxford Shakespeare: Complete Alternative Versions: Modern Critical Edition. Ed. Gary Taylor, Gabriel Egan, and Terri Bourus. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2027.
  • William Shakespeare, Othello (The First Quarto). Ed. Brett Greatley-Hirsch and Rory Loughnane. New Oxford Shakespeare: Complete Alternative Versions: Critical Reference Edition. Ed. Gary Taylor, Gabriel Egan, and Terri Bourus. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2027.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (The First Folio). Ed. Brett Greatley-Hirsch and Janelle Jenstad. New Oxford Shakespeare: Complete Alternative Versions: Modern Critical Edition. Ed. Gary Taylor, Gabriel Egan, and Terri Bourus. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2027.
  • William Shakespeare, Hamlet (The First Folio). Ed. Brett Greatley-Hirsch and Janelle Jenstad. New Oxford Shakespeare: Complete Alternative Versions: Critical Reference Edition. Ed. Gary Taylor, Gabriel Egan, and Terri Bourus. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2027.
  • William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, New Oxford Shakespeare. Ed. Rory Loughnane. Introd. Brett Greatley-Hirsch. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2027. Web.
  • Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton, The Honest Whore, Part One. Ed. Joost Daalder. Contrib. Ed. Brett Greatley-Hirsch. Victoria: LEMDO/Digital Renaissance Editions, 2015.
  • Thomas Dekker, The Honest Whore, Part Two. Ed. Joost Daalder. Contrib. Ed. Brett Greatley-Hirsch. Victoria: LEMDO/Digital Renaissance Editions, 2015.
  • A Social Edition of the Devonshire Manuscript (BL MS Add 17,492). Ed. Raymond Siemens, Karin Armstrong, and the Devonshire MS Editorial Group. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2015.

  • (with Hugh Craig), “Marston’s Marginal Drama.” The Complete Works of John Marston. Gen. ed. Martin Butler and Matthew Steggle. Assoc. ed. José A. Pérez Díez. 4 vols. Oxford UP, 2028. [In press.]
  • (with Rachel White), “Doubting Thomas: Attributing the Nashe Dubia.” The Complete Works of Thomas Nashe. Gen. ed. Joseph L. Black, Andrew Hadfield, Jennifer Richards, and Cathy Shrank. 6 vols. Oxford UP, 2027. [In press.]
  • (with Janelle Jenstad), “Failure and the Future of Digital Shakespeare Editions.” Shakespeare and Textual Failure: New Histories, Methods, and Practices. Ed. Claire M. L. Bourne. Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2027. [In press.]
  • (with Hugh Craig), “Foreign and Non-Standard Language on the Early Modern English Professional Stage, 1580–1636: Small Latin, Less Greek?” Comparative Drama 61 (2027). [In press.]
  • (with Rory Loughnane), “Re-Integrating Marlowe and Shakespeare: Canon, Collaboration, and Edward III.” Shakespeare Quarterly 77.4 (2026). [In press.]
  • (with Sarah Neville), “Genre.” The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Authorship. Ed. Rory Loughnane and Will Sharpe. Oxford UP, 2025. 377–401. PDF.
  • (with Andrew Hadfield and Rachel White), “Upstart Crows and Red Herrings: Thomas Nashe and Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit.” Shakespeare Quarterly 76.2 (2025): 139–64. PDF and data.
  • (with Rachel White), “Ass-troll-ogical Nashe: Revisiting Two Dangerous Comets and A Wonderful Prognostication.” Renaissance Studies 38.3 (2024): 335–62. PDF and data.
  • “Epicene and the Bearded Woman Saint.” Ben Jonson Journal 31.1 (2024): 94–103. PDF.
  • (with Matteo Pangallo and Rachel White), “ ‘Text up his name’: The Authorship of the Manuscript Play Dick of Devonshire.” Studies in Philology 121.1 (2024): 163–87. PDF and data.
  • (with Toby Malone) “Digital Shakespeare.” The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature. Gen. ed. Paula Rabinowitz. Oxford UP, 2015–. Published 28 June 2021. Web.
  • “Computational Studies.” The Arden Research Handbook of Contemporary Shakespeare Criticism. Ed. Evelyn Gajowski. Arden Shakespeare, 2020. 205–21. PDF.
  • (with Laurie Johnson) “Shakespeare Source Study in the Age of Google: Revisiting Greenblatt’s Graveyard and Horatio’s Ground.” Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies. Ed. Dennis Austin Britton and Melissa Walter. Routledge, 2018. 253–78. PDF.
  • (with Sarah Neville) “‘How apt it is to learn’ – Studying and Teaching Much Ado About Nothing.” Much Ado About Nothing: A Critical Reader. Ed. Deborah Cartmell and Peter J. Smith. Arden Shakespeare, 2018. 175–204. PDF
  • (with Jack Elliott) “Arden of Faversham, Shakespearean Authorship, and ‘the print of many.’” The New Oxford Shakespeare: Authorship Companion. Ed. Gary Taylor and Gabriel Egan. Oxford UP, 2017. 139–81. PDF.
  • (with Ivan Lupic) “ ‘What stuff is here?’ Edmond Malone and the 1778 Edition of Beaumont and Fletcher.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 111.3 (2017): 287–315. PDF.
  • (with Michael Best) “‘Within this Wooden [2.]O’: Shakespeare and New Media in the Digital Age.” The Shakespearean World. Ed. Jill L. Levenson and Robert Ormsby. Routledge, 2017. 443–62. PDF.
  • “Jewish Questions in Robert Wilson’s The Three Ladies of London.” Early Theatre 19.1 (2016): 37–56. PDF.
  • (with Janelle Jenstad) “Beyond the Text: Digital Editions and Performance.” Shakespeare Bulletin 34.1 (2016): 107–27. PDF.
  • “The White Devil: The State of the Art.” The White Devil: A Critical Reader. Ed. Paul Frazer and Adam Hansen. Arden Shakespeare, 2016. 83–106. PDF.
  • “Judaism and Jews.” The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare. Vol. 1. Shakespeare’s World, 1500-1660. Gen. ed. Bruce R. Smith. Cambridge UP, 2016. 709–20. PDF.
  • “Moving Targets: Constructing Canons, 2013-2014.” Early Theatre 18.1 (2015): 115-31. PDF
  • “Three Wax Images, Two Italian Gentlemen, and One English Queen.” Magical Transformations on the Early Modern English Stage. Ed. Lisa Hopkins and Helen Ostovich. Ashgate, 2014. 155–68. PDF.
  • (with Hugh Craig) “‘Mingled Yarn’: The State of Computing in Shakespeare 2.0.” Digital Shakespeares: Innovations, Interventions, Mediations, ed. Brett D. Hirsch and Hugh Craig. Special issue of The Shakespearean International Yearbook 14 (2014): 3–35. PDF.
  • “The Taming of the Jew: Spit and the Civilizing Process in The Merchant of Venice.” Staged Transgression in Shakespeare's England. Ed. Rory Loughnane and Edel Semple. Palgrave, 2013. 136–52. PDF.
  • “‘To see the Playes of Theatre newe wrought’: Electronic Editions and Early Tudor Drama.” Early Theatre 16.2 (2013): 211–49. PDF.
  • “‹/Parentheses›: Digital Humanities and the Place of Pedagogy.” Digital Humanities Pedagogy: Practices, Principles, and Politics. Ed. Brett D. Hirsch. Open Book Publishers, 2012. 3–30. Web.
  • “The Kingdom Has Been Digitized: Electronic Editions of Renaissance Drama and the Long Shadows of Shakespeare and Print.” Literature Compass 8.9 (2011): 568–91. PDF.
  • “Lycanthropy in Early Modern England: The Case of John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi.” Diseases of the Imagination and Imaginary Disease in the Early Modern Period. Ed. Yasmin Haskell. Brepols. 297–337. PDF.
  • “Bringing Richard Brome Online.” Early Theatre 13.1 (2010): 137–53. PDF.
  • “From Jew to Puritan: The Emblematic Owl in Early English Culture.” ‘This Earthly Stage’: World and Stage in Late Medieval and Early Modern England. Ed. Brett D. Hirsch and Christopher Wortham. Brepols, 2010. 131–72. PDF.
  • (with David McInnis) “Embodying Shakespeare: Introduction.” Early Modern Literary Studies, Spec. Issue 19 (2009): 1.1–13. Web.
  • “Counterfeit Professions: Jewish Daughters and the Drama of Failed Conversion in Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta and Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.” Early Modern Literary Studies, Spec. Issue 19 (2009): 4.1–37. Web.
  • “‘What are these faces?’ Interpreting Bearded Women in Macbeth.” Renaissance Drama and Poetry in Context: Essays for Christopher Wortham. Ed. Andrew Lynch and Anne M. Scott. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008. 91–114. PDF.
  • “‘A Gentle and No Jew’: The Difference Marriage Makes in The Merchant of Venice.” Parergon, 23.1 (2006): 119–129. PDF.
  • “An Italian Werewolf in London: Lycanthropy and The Duchess of Malfi.” Early Modern Literary Studies, 11.2 (2005): 2.1–34. Web.
  • “‘In the likeness of a Jew’: Kabbalah and The Merchant of Venice.” The Ben Jonson Journal, 12 (2005): 119–40. PDF.

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Some research projects I'm currently working on, or have worked on, will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>
Primary investigator (PI)
Co-investigator (Co-I)

Qualifications

  • BA (Hons), PhD
  • FEA, FHEA, FRHS, FRSA, FSA

Professional memberships

  • Australia and New Zealand Shakespeare Association
  • Bibliographical Society
  • British Shakespeare Association
  • English Association
  • Malone Society
  • Royal Historical Society
  • Royal Society of Arts
  • Shakespeare Association of America
  • Society of Antiquaries of London
  • Society for Renaissance Studies

Student education

My teaching focuses on drama (from Greek tragedy to contemporary theatre), medieval and Renaissance literature, Shakespeare (page, stage, and screen), book history, digital approaches to literary study (including stylometry and corpus-based methods), and authorship studies. I also convene the Textual Editing Project pathway for the undergraduate Final Year Project. I would welcome the opportunity to supervise prospective doctoral candidates interested to work in any of these areas.

I have supervised the following PhD students through to completion:

I currently supervise the following PhD students:

  • Dikko Yusuf, ‘Listening for Race: Reading African Literary Audiobooks’ (co-supervised with Dr Brendon Nicholls)
  • Maram Al-Rabie, ‘The Stability of Collocation as a Style Marker Across Genres’ (co-supervised with Dr Alison May)

Research groups and institutes

  • Centre for the Comparative History of Print
  • Centre for Jewish Studies
<h4>Postgraduate research opportunities</h4> <p>We welcome enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants from all around the world who are interested in PhD study. Our <a href="https://phd.leeds.ac.uk">research opportunities</a> allow you to search for projects and scholarships.</p>