Katharine Cleland

Katharine Cleland, Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, and Director of the M.A. in English Program

_{Department of English

406 Shanks Hall

181 Turner Street, NW

Blacksburg, VA 24061

540-231-7728 | kcleland@vt.edu}

Katharine Cleland is an associate professor in the Department of English. She is also the Director of the M.A. in English program and the Director of Graduate Studies. Her research specialty is early modern English literature, including Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, and the history/culture of the English Reformation. Secondary research interests include adaptation studies and gender and sexuality studies. Her monograph, Irregular Unions: Clandestine Marriage in Early Modern English Literature (Cornell UP, 2021), constitutes the first literary history of clandestine marriage in early modern England. Individual chapters examine the religious, political, and social discourses surrounding clandestine marriage in works ranging from Spenser’s Faerie Queene and Marlowe’s Hero and Leander to Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice and Othello. Her work also appears in Studies in Philology, Spenser Studies, Violent Masculinities: Male Aggression in Early Modern Texts, and the Oxford History of Poetry in English. Dr. Cleland received a Certificate of Teaching Excellence from Virginia Tech’s College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences in 2021.

Principal Areas of Research Focus

English Renaissance Literature
Shakespeare
Spenser
Milton
English Reformation

Education

Ph.D. in English, The Pennsylvania State University
M.A. in English, The Pennsylvania State University
B.A. in English and Spanish, with Highest Honors in Creative Writing, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Professional Roles

Director of Graduate Studies. English Department. Virginia Tech.
Director of M.A. in English Program. English Department. Virginia Tech.

Awards and Honors

Certificate of Teaching Excellence. College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. Virginia Tech. 2021.

Publications

Books

Irregular Unions: Clandestine Marriage in Early Modern English Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021.

Journal Articles/Book Chapters

“Daniel, Drayton, Chapman.” Oxford History of Poetry in English, Volume 4: Sixteenth Century British Poetry. Eds. Catherine Bates and Patrick Cheney. Oxford University Press, 2021. 495-516.
“English National Identity and the Reformation Problem of Clandestine Marriage in Spenser’s Faerie
Queene, Book I.” Spenser Studies 29 (2014): 75-101.
“‘Warring Spirits’: Martial Violence and Anxious Masculinity in Paradise Lost.” Violent Masculinities:
Male Aggression in Early Modern Texts. Eds. Catherine E. Thomas and Jennifer Feather.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 129-48.
“‘Wanton loves, and yong desires’: Clandestine Marriage in Marlowe’s Hero and Leander and
Chapman’s Continuation.” Studies in Philology 108.2 (2011): 215-37.

Other Publications

Review of Ian Frederick Moulton, Love in Print in the Sixteenth Century: The Popularization of Romance. New York: Palgrave, 2014. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 53.2 (2015): 325-28.
“Rota Virgiliana.” Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. 4^th edition. Ed. Roland Greene, et al. Princeton University Press, 2012. 1226-27.

Fellowships, Grants, and Sponsored Research

Research Associate. Center for the Humanities. Virginia Tech. Fall 2021-Spring 2022.
Niles Research Grant. College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. Virginia Tech. 2019.
Short-term Research Fellowship. Folger Shakespeare Library. Washington, D.C. 2014.
Summer Institute in Literary Studies. National Humanities Center. Durham, NC. 2013.
Folger Institute seminar, “Shakespeare and Sacraments.” Folger Shakespeare Library. Washington, D.C. Spring 2012.
Mellon Summer Institute in Vernacular Paleography. Folger Shakespeare Library. Washington, D.C. 2009.