Prof John Gillies
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Email
jgillies@essex.ac.uk -
Location
Colchester Campus
Profile
Biography
John Gillies joined the Department in January 2001. He lectured at the Shakespeare Institute, Macquarie University, The Australian National University, and LaTrobe University, before taking up an Australian Research Council Fellowship. He actively explores multimedia for pedagogical and research purposes. He has co-authored two multimedia packages: 'Shakespeare in Japan: Deguchi Norio', and 'Performing Shakespeare in China. 1980-90'. The first of these is currently on the LaTrobe University web site, the second is currently in further production with his co-author, Ruru Li. In addition to various articles and book chapters, he is the author of Shakespeare and the Geography of Difference(1994); co-editor (with Virginia Mason Vaughan) of Playing the Globe: Genre and Geography in English Renaissance Drama (1998); and co-editor (with Ryuta Minami and Ian Carruthers) of Performing Shakespeare in Japan (2001). He would particularly welcome applications for Ph.D. theses on Shakespeare, Renaissance drama, and cultural poetics (with a particular emphasis on the poetics of space and place); and performance issues in relation to Shakespeare and Renaissance drama.
Qualifications
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BA New England
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MA New England
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MPhil Oxford
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PhD The Australian National University
Research and professional activities
Current research
A Phenomenology of the Early Modern Sky
This paper attempts to consider the early modern idea of the sky from a phenomenological viewpoint. Unlike land or sea, the sky was never our domain. Whereas land (and to a lesser extent water) were humanly traversable by a body naturally or technologically fitted for that purpose, the sky was not. We neither approached nor possessed nor even located ourselves within it. We beheld it intransitively; apprehending but not comprehending. Effectively the sky was pure metaphor, the early modern hyperobject. I want to think through some implications of a phenomenological approach via early modern synonyms – welkin, firmament, vault, ceiling, element – as well as its early modern architecture.
The Grounds of Conversation in Shakespeare
The OED distinguishes two principal meanings of the word “conversation”: “the action of living or having one’s being in a place or among persons”, and “interchange of words, thoughts”. The first (senses 1-6) is now obsolete, the second (from sense 7) current. While there is some overlap, there is a significant gap in meaning and (I suggest) a kind of cultural struggle waged between the two. In the early modern period the first sense was dominant and the second sense emergent. Both senses, I suggest, were the focus of theoretical elaboration: the first principally by puritans (resulting in a distinction of conversational types along the lines of “Christian” and “common”), the second by Montaigne, Shaftesbury (and eventually, Gadamer). What I propose is to sketch each of these meanings of the word “conversation”, speak to the turn from one to the other, and identify traces of each kind in Shakespeare. This project represents a book-length version of ideas foreshadowed in my "The Conversational Turn in Shakespeare" published in Etudes Epistémès, 33, (2018).
Conferences and presentations
The Modernity of "The Duchess of Malfi"
Invited presentation, Aggregation Conference: sur "The Duchess of Malfi", Prof. Line Cottegnies, Paris, France, 12/10/2018
A Living Drollery: the blackamoor emblems in The Hawstead Panels
Keynote presentation, Exploring the Hawstead Panels, 17/1/2018
Teaching and supervision
Previous supervision
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 10/6/2019
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 1/4/2019
Degree subject: Film Studies
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 7/7/2017
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Master of Philosophy
Awarded date: 29/1/2016
Degree subject: Literature
Degree type: Doctor of Philosophy
Awarded date: 8/10/2014
Degree type: Occasional Postgraduate Study
Awarded date: 22/7/2012
Degree type: Occasional Postgraduate Study
Awarded date: 25/4/2010
Publications
Journal articles (3)
Gillies, J., (2019). Dangerous Conversations in "The Duchess of Malfi". Sillages Critiques. 26, 1-26
Gillies, JD., (2018). The Conversational Turn in Shakespeare. Etudes Epistémè. 33 (33)
Gillies, J., (2015). Calvinism as tragedy in the English revenge play. Shakespeare. 11 (4), 362-387
Book chapters (5)
Gillies, J., (2018). "The god called Nothingness", Büchner, Shakespeare and Original Sin. In: The Shakespearean International Yearbook : 17: Special Section, Shakespeare and Value. Editors: Bishop, T. and Joubin, AA., . Taylor & Francis. 9781138497108
Gillies, JD., (2017). "Like steel of too hard a temper": Shakespeare, Livy and the idea of the founding virtues. In: Rome in Shakespeare's World. Editors: DelSapio, M., . Edizione di Storia e Letteratura (Roma). 9788893591591
Gillies, J., (2016). Maps, Morality and Anamorphism in Shakespeare. In: Shakespeare and the new science in early modern culture. Editors: Del Sapio Garbero, M., . Pacini Editore. 217- 238. 88-6995-001-8. 978-88-6995-001-8
Gillies, J., (2010). The Author's Accomplice, or the unsearchable complicities of players in the making of Elizabethan Drama. In: The Shakespearean International Yearbook: Special Section: The Achievement of Robert Weimann. Editors: Bradshaw, G., Bishop, T. and Schalkwyk, D., . Ashgate. 119- 141. 9781409408581
Gillies, J., (2010). "Mighty Space": The Ordinate and the Exorbitant in two Shakespeare Plays. In: Questioning Bodies in Shakespeare's Rome. Editors: Del Sapio Garbero, M., Isenberg, N. and Pennacchia, M., . Unipress. 259- 274. 9783899717402
Reports and Papers (1)
Gillies, J., (2013). 'Religious Doubt' or the question of original sin in Hamlet
Grants and funding
2008
Shakespeare In Caribbean Culture
The British Academy
