benedict S. robinson

Professor
Ph.D. Columbia University, 2001
B.A. University of Chicago, 1994
Early modern literature, with interests that include the history of emotion, the history of literary theory, the history of science, and topics related to race and religion
Humanities 2076
benedict.robinson@stonybrook.edu

Twitter: @benedict_rbnsn

• Biography

  Biography

  Benedict S. Robinson specializes in early modern literature, with interests that include the history of emotion, the history of literary theory, the history of science, and topics related to race and religion. His most recent book is Passion’s Fictions from Shakespeare to Richardson: Literature and the Sciences of Soul and Mind (Oxford University Press, Spring 2021). He is currently at work on two projects that build on that one. The first is tentatively titled Resentment: Anger and Power in the Making of the Modern World 1500-1900, part of which is scheduled for publication in PMLA. The second is titled Melancholy Fears. He has also edited John Webster’s 1612 play The White Devil for Arden Early Modern Drama (2019) and is under contract with Arden Shakespeare for an edition of Antony and Cleopatra (scheduled for delivery in 2023). His first book, Islam and Early Modern English Literature: The Politics of Romance from Spenser to Milton, appeared with Palgrave in 2007; his essays have appeared in ELH, SEL, Shakespeare Quarterly, and elsewhere. He received his PhD from Columbia University in 2001.

• Selected Publications

  Books

  Passion’s Fictions from Shakespeare to Richardson: Literature and the Sciences of Soul and Mind (Oxford University Press, 2021)

  Ed., John Webster, The White Devil, Arden Early Modern Drama (Bloomsbury, 2019)

  Islam and Early Modern English Literature: The Politics of Romance from Spenser to Milton (Palgrave, 2007)

   

  Selected Articles

  “The True Story of Fictionality” (forthcoming from Critical Inquiry, Spring 2024)

  “Resentment: Shakespeare and Nietzsche on Anger without Privilege” (PMLA, 2022)

  “‘Swarth’ Phantastes: Race and Representation in The Faerie Queene” (Spenser Studies, 2021)

  “Thinking Feeling” (Affect Theory and Early Modern Texts, 2017)

  “Book Fetishes” (The Book in History, The Book as History, 2016)

  “Disgust c. 1600” (ELH, 2014)