Michael Witmore | |
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 Michael Witmore at the Folger Shakespeare Library | |
| Born | May 3, 1967 |
| Alma mater | Vassar College University of California, Berkeley |
| Occupation(s) | Director, Folger Shakespeare Library |
Michael Witmore (born May 3, 1967) 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, D.C., where he continues to serve.
Michael Witmore graduated from Vassar College in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in English. [1] He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. in rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1999 to 2008, he was an assistant professor and then an associate professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University. From 2008 to 2011, he was a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. [1] [2] [3]
Witmore's books include Culture of Accidents: Unexpected Knowledges in Early Modern England (2001), the co-winner of the 2003 Perkins Prize for the study of narrative literature; [4] Pretty Creatures: Children and Fiction in the English Renaissance (2007); Shakespearean Metaphysics (2008); and Landscapes of the Passing Strange: Reflections from Shakespeare (2010) with photographer Rosamond Purcell. He co-edited Childhood and Children's Books in Early Modern Europe, 1550–1800 (2006) and Shakespeare and Early Modern Religion (2015). [2]
A pioneer in the use of computers for digital analysis of the texts of William Shakespeare, Witmore launched and directed the Working Group for Digital Inquiry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and organized the Pittsburgh Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. [2] [5] [6]
He also founded Wine Dark Sea, a blog on the nature of linguistic variation in Shakespeare's plays and early modern English text; he continues to jointly maintain the blog with Jonathan Hope of Strathclyde University. [7] Witmore and Hope are collaborating on a book in progress, Shakespeare by the Numbers and Other Tales from the Digital Frontier. [2] [8] Witmore, Hope, and Lynne Magnusson are also series editors of the Arden Shakespeare Studies in Language and Digital Methodologies. [9]
Witmore is interested in how the resources of computing, when applied to collections of digitized texts, can allow scholars to do intellectual and cultural history "at the level of the sentence." [10] He is known for proposing that "massive addressability" is a fundamental feature of texts. [11] [12]
As the director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Witmore developed a new strategic plan, which was accepted by the board in 2013. [3] From 2020 to 2023, the Folger building temporarily closed for a major renovation project, adding two new exhibition halls, extensive new gardens that incorporate two large entry ramps, and accessible visitor entrances below the existing building, in addition to other changes. [13] [14]
During Witmore's tenure, the Folger has pursued multiple digital humanities (DH) projects, including Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO), Shakespeare's World (a crowdsourced manuscripts project), Shakespeare Documented, [15] A Digital Anthology of Early Modern English Drama (EMED), [16] and apps with a social reading platform for seven of Shakespeare's most-known plays. [17] In addition, the Folger editions of Shakespeare's plays and poems were made available in free, searchable form — originally as the Folger Digital Texts, launched in 2012, and then, in 2020, as The Folger Shakespeare. [18] [19]
Witmore has led the Folger in celebrating three major Shakespeare anniversaries: the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth in 2014, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 2016, [20] and the 400th anniversary of the First Folio of Shakespeare in 2023. In preparation for the first two anniversaries, the library updated and renovated its Great Hall exhibition space [21] and completed a number of upgrades to its Elizabethan Theatre. [22] The Folger marked the 2014 anniversary of Shakespeare's birth with Shakespeare's the Thing, an exhibition of Shakespeare-related items curated by Folger staff members. For the 2016 anniversary of his death, the Folger organized a traveling national tour, First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare, which displayed First Folios from the Folger collection in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, with public programs and events at the host sites. [1] [23] [24] Other aspects of the 2016 anniversary celebration included a C-SPAN2 Book TV live broadcast on the anniversary date, [25] a Los Angeles exhibition on America's Shakespeare: The Bard Goes West, [26] launching a continuing Theater Partnership Program nationwide, commissioning the vocal work "The Isle" (based on The Tempest) by Caroline Shaw, [27] premiering District Merchants, a variation of The Merchant of Venice set in Washington, D.C., after the Civil War, [28] and piloting the CrossTalk DC community discussion program on race and religion as part of the NEH’s Humanities in the Public Square program. [29] [30] In 2023, the Folger produced Searching for Shakespeare, a festival of events for the anniversary of Shakespeare's First Folio, in partnership with the Washington, D.C., public library system, including the premiere of the play Our Verse in Time to Come, by Malik Work and Karen Ann Daniels, in collaboration with Devin E. Haqq, the Shakespeare's Birthday Lecture, a citywide scavenger hunt, workshops and family activities, and the exhibition of a Folger First Folio at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library. [31]
Under Witmore, the Folger has also produced many other projects, among them Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible, an NEH-funded 2011–13 national touring panel exhibition on the 400th anniversary of the 1611 King James Bible, with the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford; the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series, for which Witmore has recorded introductions to more than 200 episodes; [32] the general-audience Shakespeare & Beyond blog; the Folger Shakespeare Audio Editions, studio recordings of seven Shakespeare plays by the Folger Theatre; and what is believed to be the first professional performance in centuries of William Davenant's adaptation of Macbeth from about 1664. [33] Other Folger projects included Experiencing Shakespeare, an electronic field trip used by hundreds of thousands of students and produced by Folger Education, which won two regional Emmys; [34] curricula on Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello for grades 9, 10, and 12 in the D.C. Public Schools; [35] and Black Shakespeare, an award-winning curriculum for Reconstruction, an online education platform. The Folger also organized "Before 'Farm to Table,'" a four-year collaborative research project funded by the Mellon Foundation that included scholars in multiple disciplines, performers, chefs, and others, on early modern food and foodways and their social and international impact, including a commissioned theatrical work, Confection. [36] [37] Witmore also sought out new ways to combine science and the humanities, including DNA research on the dust in centuries-old books. [38]
While serving as Folger director, Witmore was the co-curator with photographer and co-author Rosamond Purcell of the 2012 Folger exhibition Very Like a Whale, based on their book Landscapes of the Passing Strange, [39] [40] and the co-curator with Heather Wolfe, the Folger curator of manuscripts and associate librarian, of the 2019 Folger exhibition, A Monument to Shakespeare: The Architecture of the Folger Shakespeare Library. [41] He gave the Folger's annual Shakespeare's Birthday Lecture in 2017, [42] has spoken at multiple Folger Institute symposia, served as a faculty member at several Folger Institute seminars, and gave pre-show talks before Folger Theatre performances of Shakespeare plays and plays inspired by Shakespeare. [43] Among other public appearances, he gave a Lowell Lecture on "Civic Shakespeare" in 2019 hosted by Boston College [44] and appeared in numerous interviews and panel discussions. [45]
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) in Britain and Europe. 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 Newberry Library is an independent research library, specializing in the humanities and located on Washington Square in Chicago, Illinois. It has been free and open to the public since 1887. Its collections encompass a variety of topics related to the history and cultural production of Western Europe and the Americas over the last six centuries. The Library is named to honor the founding bequest from the estate of philanthropist Walter Loomis Newberry. Core collection strengths support research in several subject areas, including maps, travel, and exploration; music from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century; early contact between Western colonizers and Indigenous peoples in the Western Hemisphere; the personal papers of twentieth-century American journalists; the history of printing; and genealogy and local history.
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.
Sir Andrew Jonathan Bate, CBE, FBA, FRSL, is a British academic, biographer, critic, broadcaster, poet, playwright, novelist and scholar. He specialises in Shakespeare, Romanticism and Ecocriticism. He is Foundation Professor of Environmental Humanities in a joint appointment of the College of Liberal Arts, the School of Sustainability and the Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College in the University of Oxford, where he holds the title of Professor of English Literature. Bate was Provost of Worcester College, Oxford from 2011 to 2019. From 2017 to 2019 he was Gresham Professor of Rhetoric in the City of London. He was knighted in 2015 for services to literary scholarship and higher education.
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.
The American Shakespeare Center (ASC) is a regional theatre company located in Staunton, Virginia, that focuses on the plays of William Shakespeare; his contemporaries Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Christopher Marlowe; and works related to Shakespeare, like James Goldman's The Lion in Winter and Bob Carlton's Return to the Forbidden Planet.
Gary Taylor is an American academic, George Matthew Edgar Professor of English at Florida State University, author of numerous books and articles, and joint editor of The Oxford Shakespeare and The Oxford Middleton.
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.
Teena Rochfort-Smith was a Victorian Shakespearean scholar and philologist most notable for her contributions to the form of the scholarly edition.
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 Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) is an American independent, nonprofit organization. It works with libraries, cultural institutions, and higher learning communities on developing strategies to improve research, teaching, and learning environments. It is based in Alexandria, VA, United States. CLIR is supported primarily by annual dues from its over 180 sponsoring institutions and 190 DLF members, and by foundation grants and individual donations.
#1Lib1Ref is a Wikipedia campaign inviting every librarian on Earth to participate in the online encyclopedia project, specifically improving articles by adding citations.
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.
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. He was named a Guggenheim Fellow in English Literature for 2022.
Jane Ohlmeyer,, is a historian and academic, specialising in early modern Irish and British history. She is the Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History (1762) at Trinity College Dublin and Chair of the Irish Research Council, which funds frontier research across all disciplines.
Gail Kern Paster is an American Shakespeare scholar, historian and writer.
Kim F. Hall was born in 1961 in Baltimore. She 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.
Heather Ruth Wolfe is an American curator of manuscripts and archivist at the Folger Shakespeare Library. A "Shakespeare detective", she has been noted for her research into the history of the Shakespeare coat of arms. She headed "Shakespeare Documented", a project to make contemporary texts involving Shakespeare available online, and is involved in the similar "Early Modern Manuscripts Online" (EMMO) project.
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