Colleen R. Rosenfeld

Professor of English
  • Expertise

    Expertise

    Colleen Rosenfeld specializes in the study of early modern poetry and poetics. Her first book, Indecorous Thinking: Figures of Speech in Early Modern Poetics (Fordham University Press, 2018), is a defense of eloquence — not as a sign of the aesthetic but as the source of a particular kind of knowledge closely aligned with the emergent field of vernacular poesie. Rosenfeld’s essays have appeared in ELH, English Literary Renaissance and Modern Philology, and the edited collection Othello: State of Play. She is currently at work on a second book titled, Seeing Things Otherwise: Variations on Form in Shakespeare and Picasso.

    Areas of Expertise

    • Renaissance poetry and poetic theory
    • Questions of style and epistemology
    • Aesthetic form
    • History and practice of close reading
  • Work

    Work

    Book

    Indecorous Thinking: Figures of Speech in Early Modern Poetics (New York: Fordham University Press, 2018).

    Articles

    • “The Queen’s Conceit in Shakespeare’s Richard II” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 60.1 (Winter, 2020): 25-46.
    • “The Artificial Life of Rhyme,” ELH 83.1 (Spring, 2016): 71-99.
    • “Poetry and the Potential Mood: The Counterfactual Form of Ben Johnson’s “To Fine Lady Would-Be”,” Modern Philology 112.2 (Fall, 2014): 336-357.
    • “Shakespeare’s Nobody,” in Othello: The State of Play, ed. Lena Orlin (Arden: 2014), 257-279.
    • “Braggadochio and the Schoolroom Simile,” English Literary Renaissance 41.3 (Autumn, 2011): 429-461.
    • “Wroth’s Clause,” ELH 76.4 (Winter, 2009): 1049-1071.
  • Education

    Education

    Ph.D.
    Rutgers University

    Master of Arts
    Rutgers University

    Bachelor of Arts
    Reed College

    Recent Courses Taught

    • Early Modern Poetry and Poetics
    • Shakespeare: Comedies & Histories
    • Shakespeare: Page and Stage
  • Awards & Honors

    Awards & Honors

    • "The Renaissance Project." Workshop Grant from the Alliance to Advance Liberal Arts Colleges, 2019-2020.
    • Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity Course Development Grant Award, 2019-2020, for the development of "Ovidian Figures" co-taught with Jessica McCoy, associate professor of art at Pitzer College.
    • Faculty Fellowship, Humanities Studio at Pomona College, 2019-2020.
    • Short-Term Fellowship.  The Huntington Library, 2019-2020.