Professor Andrew Gordon

Professor Andrew Gordon
Professor Andrew Gordon
Professor Andrew Gordon

BA (UNL), MA (Sussex), PhD (Queen Mary's, London)

Personal Chair

Accepting PhDs

About
Email Address
a.gordon@abdn.ac.uk
Telephone Number
+44 (0)1224 272626
Office Address

Taylor Building, B07

School/Department
School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture

Biography

Andrew Gordon (BA, MA, PhD) is Professor of Renaissance Literature and Culture and Co-Director of Aberdeen's interdisciplinary Centre for Early Modern Studies. His research explores the intersection between textual forms and cultural practices across the early modern period. He has published widely on the literature and culture of early modern London, on letter-writing, and on textual transmission in both manuscript and print.

He is the author of Writing Early Modern London: Memory, Text and Community (Palgrave, 2013) as well as various collections including Cultures of Correspondence in Early Modern Britain (U Penn, 2016) and Women and Epistolary Agency in Early Modern Culture, 1450-1690 (Routledge, 2016), (co-ed w. J. Daybell), and The Arts of Remembrance in Early Modern England (Ashgate, 2013) (co-ed w. T. Rist). He also directed The Correspondence of Robert Beale (1541-1601) funded by a Hunter-Caldwell award. 

His current major project, Renaissance Cultures of the Foot, is a response to literary culture's deep investment in the hand. Drawing on recent anthropological work that posits a study of culture on the ground, this project explores how the literary imagination of the period is informed by the embodied experiences of ‘footwork’.  It places the lived experience of feet in dialogue with a series of cultural roles fulfilled by, and centred on, the foot. Publications that form part of this project include 'The Renaissance Footprint: The Material Trace in Print Culture from Dürer to Spenser’, Renaissance Quarterly 71:2 (2018), 478-529 https://doi.org/10.1086/698139.

In recent years he has developed creative collaborations worked with the director Alasdair Hunter, and both Aberdeen Performing Arts and Lesley Anne Rose of Open Road productions.

He welcomes enquiries from prospective graduate students in all aspects of early modern research, from those interested in material texts/textual transmission, cultural mobility, memory and community. 

Memberships and Affiliations

Internal Memberships

Co-Director, Centre for Early Modern Studies

Academic Line Manager

REF co-lead for English

External Memberships

Editorial Board, Material Readings in Early Modern Culture

Editorial Board, Literary London

Early Modern Studies in Scotland, Covener, 2008-

Renaissance Society of America, Council Member

Advisory Board, Women's Early Modern Letters Online

Research

Research Overview

BOOKS

Cultures of Correspondence cover image

 W & EA cover

 

 

 

JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUES

 ARTICLES AND CHAPTERS

ONLINE RESOURCES

REFERENCE

  • 'Jane Daniell (nee de la Kethulle) [also Rehova/Ryhova], b.c.1565 d. after 1612, autobiographer', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2021) 
  • 'John Daniell of Daresbury, 1544-1610', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2021) 
  • 'John Stow', 'Richard Grafton', and 'Robert Devereux, 2nd earl of Essex', in Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature ed. Alan Stewart and Garrett Sullivan jr (Blackwells, 2012).

 

Research Areas

Accepting PhDs

I am currently accepting PhDs in English.


Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your research ideas further.

Email Me

English

Supervising
Accepting PhDs

Research Specialisms

  • Drama
  • English Literature
  • English Literature 1200 -1700
  • Shakespeare Studies

Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Current Research

His current major project, Renaissance Cultures of the Foot, is a response to literary culture's deep investment in the hand. Drawing on recent anthropological work that posits a study of culture on the ground, this project explores how the literary imagination of the period is informed by the embodied experiences of ‘footwork’.  It places the lived experience of feet in dialogue with a series of cultural roles fulfilled by, and centred on, the foot. Publications that form part of this project include 'The Renaissance Footprint: The Material Trace in Print Culture from Dürer to Spenser’, Renaissance Quarterly 71:2 (2018), 478-529 https://doi.org/10.1086/698139.

Knowledge Exchange

Recently he has developed creative collaborations with Aberdeen Performing Arts and the director Alasdair Hunter, resulting in What Country Friends Is This? a work combining research on early modern touring players with experiences of members of the city's Polish community, that featured in the Silver City Stories festival. Reimagined with the writer Lesley-Anne Rose of Open Road Productions, and funded by Creative Scotland, it was performed at Footdee Community centre in 2019. A new collaboration with Alasdair Hunter, used lockdown recorded performances of letters from the plays of Shakespeare and early modern culture, as part of a reflection on absence, isolation, and the place of theatre under the title A Merry Note. You can see clips of the performed letters recorded in isolation here.

Teaching

Teaching Responsibilities

EL2011: Encounters with Shakespeare

EL30CP: Page and Stage: Renaissance Writing, 1500-1640

EL40AD: Staging the City: Renaissance Urban Drama

EL5590: Locations and Dislocations: The Role of Place in Literature