Home › Research▻People▻Humanities

Humanities

Dr Victoria Brownlee

B.A.,M.A.,Ph.D

Contact Details

Lecturer In English (1500-1700)
English
School of Humanities
Tower One
University Road
NUI Galway

T: 353 (0)91 493974
E: victoria.brownlee@nuigalway.ie
 
researcher

Biography

Victoria Brownlee is Lecturer in English (1500-1700).  Before joining the Department of English, School of Humanities at NUI Galway in 2014, she lectured at NUI Maynooth and Queen's University, Belfast, and held an Irish Research Council Fellowship at University College Dublin.  Victoria completed her PhD in early modern literature as an Arts and Humanities Research Council scholar at Queen's in 2012, and since then her research has focused on early modern drama, biblical reading, and seventeenth-century women’s writing. 

As an IRC fellow at UCD, Victoria completed a project investigating the intersections between biblical interpretation and literature in the period 1540-1640.  The research completed during this fellowship forms the basis of her forthcoming monograph Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern England (Oxford University Press, 2018).  She is also the co-editor of the volume of essays Biblical Women in Early Modern Literary Culture: 1550-1700 (Manchester University Press, 2015).     

Victoria has taught widely in the area of early modern Literature.  In addition to teaching on large undergraduate lecture courses focusing on literary form and Renaissance drama and poetry, she has taught elective seminar courses on Milton, early modern women's writing, revenge tragedy, Shakespearean adaptation and appropriation, and post-colonial and feminist criticism.  Victoria has also enjoyed convening an interdisciplinary MA module on filmic and theatrical productions of Shakespeare from across the globe, supervising BA and MA dissertation projects, and teaching outside her research specialism on contemporary fiction and film.

Research Interests

Victoria's research focuses on early modern drama and poetry and includes the work of Shakespeare, Peele, Dekker, Middleton, Leigh, Lanyer and Aylett.  She is particularly interested in the early modern Bible, Protestant exegesis and theology, politics, exemplarity, and apocalypse.  Her book, Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern England, is forthcoming with Oxford Universty Press (2018). Elsewhere she has written on seventeenth-century women's writing and the Book of Revelation, and is the co-editor of the volume of essays Biblical Women in Early Modern Literary Culture: 1550-1700 (Manchester University Press: 2015).   Currently, Victoria is working on a project examining ideas of literal and spiritual birth among men and women in the seventeenth century.                           

Books

  Year Publication
(2018) Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern England.
Victoria Brownlee (2018) Biblical Readings and Literary Writings in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Details]

Edited Books

  Year Publication
(2015) Biblical Women in Early Modern Literary Culture 1550-1700.
Brownlee, Victoria; Gallagher, Laura (Ed.). (2015) Biblical Women in Early Modern Literary Culture 1550-1700 Biblical Women in Early Modern Literary Culture 1550-1700. Manchester: Manchester University Press. [Details]

Peer Reviewed Journals

  Year Publication
(2015) ''Literal and Spiritual Births: Mary as Mother in Seventeenth-century Women's Writing''
Victoria Brownlee (2015) ''Literal and Spiritual Births: Mary as Mother in Seventeenth-century Women's Writing''. Renaissance Quarterly, [Details]

Book Chapters

  Year Publication
(2019) 'Pre-Christian Rome - Post-Reformation England: Apocalyptic Expectancy and Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra'
Victoria Brownlee (2019) 'Pre-Christian Rome - Post-Reformation England: Apocalyptic Expectancy and Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra' In: The Arden Critical Companion to Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. London: Arden. [Details]
(2015) ''Imagining the Enemy: Protestant Readings of the Whore of Babylon in Early Modern England''
Victoria Brownlee (2015) ''Imagining the Enemy: Protestant Readings of the Whore of Babylon in Early Modern England'' In: Biblical Women in Early Modern Literary Culture: 1550-1700. Manchester: Manchester University Press. [Details]
(2015) 'Introduction: Discovering Biblical Women in Early Modern Literary Culture'
Victoria Brownlee and Laura Gallagher (2015) 'Introduction: Discovering Biblical Women in Early Modern Literary Culture' In: Biblical Women in Early Modern Literary Culture 1550-1700. Manchester: Manchester University Press. [Details]
(2015) ''Reading Old Testament Women in Early Modern England, 1550-1700''
Victoria Brownlee and Laura Gallagher (2015) ''Reading Old Testament Women in Early Modern England, 1550-1700'' In: Biblical Women in Early Modern Literary Culture: 1550-1700. Manchester: Manchester University Press. [Details]
(2015) 'Reading New Testament Women in Early Modern England'
Victoria Brownlee and Laura Gallagher (2015) 'Reading New Testament Women in Early Modern England' In: Biblical Women in Early Modern Literary Culture 1550-1700. Manchester: Manchester University Press. [Details]

Honours and Awards

  Year Title Awarding Body
2017 University of Hamburg, Research Fellowship/Guest Scientist University of Hamburg
2016 Millennium Research Fund Award NUI Galway
2013 Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship Irish Research Council
2011 Shakespeare Association of America Travel Scholarship Shakespeare Association of America
2010 Arts and Humanities Research Council Student-Led Initative Arts and Humanities
2008 Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Award Arts and Humanities Research Council
2007 Arts and Humanities Research Council Preparation Masters Award Arts and Humanities Research Council
2007 Henry Hutchinson Stewart Literary Scholarship Henry Hutchinson Stewart

Professional Associations

  Association Function From / To
Shakespeare Association of America Member /
Renaissance Society of America Member /

Teaching Interests

At NUI Galway, I convene and teach a large second-year lecture survey course in early module literature (ENG2128: Novelty, Conflict, Scandal: reading Early Modernity) and teach specialist seminar courses on Milton's Paradise Lost, and  Tudor and Stuart Texts and Contexts.  I am co-convenor of the third year Extended Essay module, and teach an MA module on post-colonial filmic and theatrical adaptations of Shakespeare's plays.