Stephen X. Mead, Ph.D.

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English Department Chair

Professor, English

Areas of Expertise

  • Shakespeare
  • Early Modern Literature and Culture
  • Medieval Literature
  • Classical Literature in Translation
  • Poetry
  • Drama
  • Literature of WWI
  • Creative Writing (Poetry)

Education

Ph.D. (British Literature), Indiana University
M.A.(English), ibid
M.A. (Creative Writing), ibid
B.A. (Literature) S.U.N.Y. College at Purchase

Background

My undergraduate study was at the State University of New York, College at Purchase, which at the time had a "literature" degree instead of the more usual "English major." This meant we studied lots of non-English and dramatic texts. Further, we had semesters mixed between taking three courses at a time and one course (1/3 as long) at a time. My one-hundred-page senior thesis was on Storytelling in Spenser, Shakespeare, and Cervantes.

Graduate studies at Indiana University included classes and seminars; languages (Latin and Italian); qualifying exams; and master's degrees in English and creative writing. I wrote a dissertation on ideas of chastity in Shakespeare's "problem plays."

After a year of full-time teaching at an all-male engineering school, I came to Saint Martin's in August 1986. Things changed here a great deal over the years, most changes extremely positive. I do scholarship on Shakespeare and early modern poetry and drama. I teach classes in writing (both expository and creative), drama, poetry, the Great War, Shakespeare, English renaissance, medieval studies, and Catholic literature.

Recent professional activities:

  • Organized and hosted the 57th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference, October 17-19, 2013 at Saint Martin's University.
  • "Shakespeare's Play With Perspective: Sonnet 24, Hamlet, and Lear," Studies in Philology 109.3 (2012): 225-257.
  • "Desacrilizing the Body Politic in Richard II," presented at The Renaissance Society of America, San Diego CA, April 6, 2013.
  • "A Midsummer Night's Domestic Drama: Translating a Boy from Changeling to Henchman," presented at Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference, Abbottsford, B.C., October 20, 2012.
  • "Imagined Spaces on Shakespeare's Stage," presented at the Fifth Blackfriars Conference, Staunton, VA, October 22, 2009.

Areas of interest (professional / personal):

Outside of school, I enjoy playing folk and blues, going to the theatre, backpacking in the Olympics, and laughing with friends and family.