Adam Hembree is a PhD candidate in English at The University of Melbourne. He received his BA in English and Italian Studies from the University of Notre Dame (USA) and his MA in English from Villanova University. His primary area of interest is early modern English drama, particularly the art and practice of playing.
Adam’s MA research focused on stage villainy and monstrosity in Shakespeare’s Othello and Richard III. His current project, ‘Reading Strange Matters: The Magic Word in Early Modern Drama’, examines the discursive parallels between stage action and magical or occult arts. The project is supervised by Dr David McInnis and Prof. Stephanie Trigg. His critical interests include the philosophy of language, etymology, affect theory, theological and literary constructions of evil, and the intersections of performance studies with gender/queer theory and ecocriticism.
Adam also performs and teaches improvisational theatre, and is a co-founder of Soothplayers: Completely Improvised Shakespeare.
Contact
hembreea@student.unimelb.edu.au
Academia.edu
Soothplayers
Research
Reading Strange Matters: The Magic Word in Early Modern Drama
Selected Presentations
Conference Paper: ‘Lexical Feeling: Language as Emotional Technology’, Third International Conference of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions ‘The Future of Emotions/Conversations Without Borders’, The University of Western Australia, 14–15 June 2018.
Conference Panel Paper: ‘“All her martyred signs”: Signified Suffering and Embodied Metaphor, in panel ‘Shakespeare and Gesture’, Shakespeare Association of America 46th Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, USA, 28–31 March 2018.
Selected Publications
Hembree, A. ‘“Let us have a play extempore”: Shakespeare and Spontaneous Narrative’. In Shakespeare and Narrative, edited by J. F. Bernard. Ohio State University Press, forthcoming.
Hembree, A. ‘Canting Queer Ken: Stage Magic and the Edge of Knowledge’. In New Directions in Early Modern English Drama: Edges, Spaces, Intersections, edited by A. Norrie and M. Houlahan, pp. 55–75. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2020.