Gail Kern Paster (born 1944) is an American Shakespeare scholar, historian and writer.
She was born on 8 November 1944. Paster graduated from North Shore High School (New York) in 1962. She received her bachelor's degree from Smith College and her PhD from Yale University. [1] [2]
Paster taught at the George Washington University from 1974 to 2002. [3] From 2002 to 2011, she was the director of the Folger Shakespeare Library. [4]
She has also served as editor of the Shakespeare Quarterly magazine. [5]
Paster's notable books include: [6] [7]
The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materials from the early modern period (1500–1750). The library was established by Henry Clay Folger in association with his wife, Emily Jordan Folger. It opened in 1932, two years after his death.
The New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising sports teams from eleven highly selective liberal arts institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The eleven institutions are Amherst College, Bates College, Bowdoin College, Colby College, Connecticut College, Hamilton College, Middlebury College, Tufts University, Trinity College, Wesleyan University, and Williams College.
Irvin Leigh Matus was an independent scholar, autodidact, and author. He is best known as an authority on Shakespeare, but also wrote about aspects of Brooklyn's history such as the Vitagraph Studios, and developed a method of modelling baseball statistics. He was a scholar-in-residence at Shepherd University for the academic year 1992-1993. He was based in Washington, DC.
Henry Clay Folger Jr. was president and later chairman of Standard Oil of New York, a collector of Shakespeareana, and founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio, published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It is considered one of the most influential books ever published.
Stanley King was the eleventh president of Amherst College. He held that position from 1932 to 1946.
The Shakespeare Theatre Company is a regional theatre company located in Washington, D.C. The theatre company focuses primarily on plays from the Shakespeare canon, but its seasons include works by other classic playwrights such as Euripides, Ibsen, Wilde, Shaw, Schiller, Coward and Tennessee Williams. The company manages and performs in the Harman Center for the Arts, consisting of the Lansburgh Theatre and Sidney Harman Hall. In cooperation with George Washington University, they run the Academy for Classical Acting.
Emily Jordan Folger, was the wife of Henry Clay Folger and the co-founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library. During her husband's lifetime, she assisted him in building the world's largest collection of Shakespeare materials. After his death in 1930, she funded the completion of the Folger Shakespeare Library to house the collection, remaining involved with its administration until her death in 1936.
James Francis Lawrence Ginty is an American actor. He was discovered by director Kathryn Bigelow while at the Juilliard School in New York City, and was cast in her film K-19: The Widowmaker alongside Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson. He has worked in film, theatre and television and is probably best known for playing multiple roles in Disney's sci-fi action picture Surrogates.
Roger A. Stritmatter is a professor of Humanities at Coppin State University and the former general editor of Brief Chronicles, a delayed open access journal covering the Shakespeare authorship question from 2009 to 2016. He was a founder of the modern Shakespeare Fellowship, an organization that promotes Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, as the true author of the works of William Shakespeare. He is one of the leading modern-day advocates of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, and has been called the “first professional Oxfordian scholar”.
Fayette Curtis Canfield was an American theater director, drama professor, and the first dean of the Yale School of Drama.
Peggy O'Brien Ph.D. is the founding director of education at the Folger Shakespeare Library and an internationally recognized authority in the teaching of Shakespeare and literature. She speaks and writes on teaching and learning with respect to Shakespeare and the humanities, and to K-12 classrooms. She is a director of SAGE Publications, board chair of St. Coletta School in Washington, D.C. and past board chair at Trinity Washington University. She founded and directs the Folger Library's Teaching Shakespeare Institute, its Summer Academy for teachers and a number of other programs. She is general editor of the Shakespeare Set Free series of books on the teaching of Shakespeare. O'Brien is a resident consulting teacher at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and launched and published Shakespeare Magazine. O'Brien has worked in the service of education since 1969. She has taught English in District of Columbia public high schools, held the senior education positions in both public broadcasting and the cable industry's education foundation, and served on the leadership team of DC Public Schools. She teaches at Georgetown University and Trinity Washington University.
The Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608, compiled by Thomas Trevelyon in London, England in 1608, is an illustrated manuscript miscellany containing handwritten notes and drawings on historical, religious, social and practical themes, adapted from a variety of sources, including the Bible and ancient and contemporary English writers. According to Dr. Heather Wolfe, Curator of Manuscripts and Archivist at the Folger Shakespeare Library, "the primary purposes of the Trevelyon miscellany ... are didactic and mnemonic. The extracts and examples from secular, allegorical, and Protestant texts are an enduring monument for improving one's moral conduct in this life and preparing for the next."
Thomas Trevelyon lived in England and is believed to have been an embroidery pattern drawer. He is long known for having compiled two large manuscript miscellanies, the Miscellany of 1608 now in the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Great Book of 1616 now in the library at Wormsley Park. A third miscellany, in the collection of University College London was identified as being in his hand in 2012, and dates to circa 1603.
Fay Bound Alberti is a British cultural historian of gender, emotion and medicine, an honorary senior research fellow in history at Queen Mary University of London and Reader in History and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of York where she is also co-Director of the Centre for Global Health Histories. Bound Alberti is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHist) and a foundation future leader at the Foundation for Science and Technology.
Michael Witmore is a Shakespearean, scholar of rhetoric, digital humanist, and director of a library and cultural institution. In 2011, he was appointed the director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, where he continues to serve.
Katherine Anandi Rowe is a scholar of Renaissance literature and media history. She was named the twenty-eighth president of the College of William & Mary on February 20, 2018. She began her service on July 2, 2018 succeeding W. Taylor Reveley III, who had served as president since 2008. After seven months in office, Rowe was formally inaugurated February 8, 2019 as part of the university's annual Charter Day ceremony.
Jeffrey A. Masten is an American academic specializing in Renaissance English literature and culture and the history of sexuality. He is the author and editor of numerous books and scholarly articles. Masten's book Queer Philologies was awarded the 2018 Elizabeth Dietz Prize for the best book in the field of early modern drama by the journal SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900.
Karen Hastie Williams was an American lawyer and company director.
Kim F. Hall is Lucyle Hook Professor of English and Professor of Africana Studies at Barnard College. She is an expert on black feminist studies, critical race theory, early modern and Renaissance literature.