My Research
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My research began with my Master's thesis, which sought to put Shakespeare into the same cultural conversation as George Lucas' Star Wars films. The result was a confirmation that both Shakespeare and Lucas, in their respective texts, were contending with the same unique thematic queries. This exercise proved literarily compelling, but also revolutionary for its application within classroom settings. Through this pairing, Shakespeare's text was deemed relevant, complex, and alive by undergraduate students who previously found the Bard unreachable.
My doctoral research aims to further investigate the kinds of social and cultural theoretical work that Shakespeare was engaging in through his plays-- in particular, the way in which Shakespeare endeavoured to untangle the most pressing dichotomy in Early Modern England: Queen Elizabeth I. Even further, I engage with Elizabeth here not as a distant figure toward which Shakespeare wrote in his texts, but rather as an interlocutor in the cultural dialogue surrounding her reign in her own right. My doctoral dissertation, entitled "Ciphers of a Sovereign" approaches the playwright and his Queen as participants in the same negotiatory exchange, based on one key question: What does Elizabeth represent for this new England?
Writing Samples
Hamlet & Anakin
My MA thesis examines Shakespeare's Hamlet and Henry V alongside Lucas' Anakin Skywalker.
Cuban Generational Memory
Originally written in Spanish, this paper explores Miami's The Amparo Experience and its engagement with cultural memory.
The Tempest & the Archive
This presentation given at Carnegie Mellon's "Bridges and Borders" Conferences imagines Prospero's island as a non-traditional archive.
Shakespeare's Sonnets
This essay investigates the way in which the personification of "Time" functions throughout Shakespeare's Sonnets.
My Dissertation
My dissertation seeks to interrogate the dialogic relationship between William Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I, by examining the exchange of common ideas found within the works and performances of both figures, and further, by closely following the negotiatory conversation that both figures engaged in. In particular, this dissertation firstly forefronts Queen Elizabeth I’s status as a deeply complicated and groundbreaking figure within the landscape of Early Modern politics, art, literature, and culture. This complex nature stems from: Elizabeth’s status as single female monarch who bears no heirs; as bastard child of Henry VIII; as inheritor of the national religious turmoil stoked by her predecessors; as simultaneously existing as an icon of virginal values as well as hyper-sexualized purveyor of courtly love; as inhabiting both the ideal feminine virtues of the time and the necessary male attributes necessitated by the throne; and finally as enigmatic icon of early modern life cultivating everything from fashion to prayer life.
The core questions that this inquiry seeks to answer are the following: In what ways did Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I engage in a mutual exchange as interlocutors within a wider conversation in which both figures participated? In what ways did Elizabeth probe her own complicated existence, and in what ways did Shakespeare respond? Further, when Shakespeare represented Elizabeth in his works, to what extent was he not merely representing her, but investigating her?
