Elizabeth E. Tavares (she/her/hers) is an interdisciplinary scholar of Medieval and Renaissance literature and performance. She is currently at work on her first book manuscript, The Repertory System Before Shakespeare: Playing the Stock Market, which argues that it was dramaturgical features—such as blocking, cosmetics, sound, and props—by which early playing companies distinguished themselves from one another in order to survive in the diverse, competitive theatre marketplace of the English Renaissance.

Her recent research interests include the role climatological phenomena played in the emergence of the professional playing companies, the place of victualing houses in sixteenth-century new play development, and the effects of content curation on early (modern) habits of mind. Her most recent work explores allusion to and representation of Tartary tribes—unified under Chinggis Khan in the early thirteenth century—in sixteenth-century English theatrical documents and travelogues.

Tavares's scholarship and reviews have appeared in or are forthcoming from Shakespeare Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Notes & Queries, Shakespeare, Scene, The Journal of Dramatic Theory & Criticism, and The Map of Early Modern London, among others. She has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and grants, including from the NEH, Mellon Foundation, Early Modern Conversions, Folger Shakespeare Library, Huntington Library, Newberry Library, and Society for Theatre Research. This research has been recognized with prizes from the Medieval & Renaissance Drama Society and Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities. You can find a complete vita here.

As an avid teacher and mentor, Tavares has developed courses in and lectured on British literature and history, EcoDrama, contemporary Shakespeare adaptations and performance, Critical Race Theory and hashtag activism. Her mentees have pursued thesis projects bridging the discourses of dance, embodiment, and the Victorian novel; exploring the affective affordances of Sherlock Holmes fan fiction; and tracing the history of editing grief in early modern representations of male mourning.

For more, visit her website, blog, or follow Tavares on Twitter (@ElizETavares).

Education

• PhD, MA, English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• BA, English & History, DePaul University
• Certificate in Editing, University of Chicago

Research Areas

• Repertory Studies
• Playing Companies
• Theatre History & Economics
• Shakespeare & Contemporaries
• Digital Humanities & Curation
• English Renaissance Literatures
• Practice-based Research (PbR)
• EcoDrama & Ecocriticism
• Postcolonial & Critical Race Theory
• Textual Editing & Criticism

Editorial Commitments

• IJURCA: International Journal of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activities, Humanities Editor-in-Chief
• Original Practice Shakespeare Festival, Scholar-in-Residence
• Silk Road Review: A Literary Crossroads, Senior Drama Editor

Courses at Pacific