About

Professor of Shakespeare, late 16th and early 17th century English Drama, and Women’s and Gender studies at Hunter College, CUNY.  Author of Fantasies of Female Evil: The Dynamics of Gender and Power in Shakespearean Tragedy. U of Delaware P, 2003; Women and Shakespeare’s Cuckoldry Plays:  Shifting Narratives of Marital Betrayal, Routledge, 2017; and Co-editor, with Emily G. Sherwood, of Reading Mistress Elizabeth Bourne: Marriage, Separation, and Legal Controversies, Routledge 2021.  Series Editor, with Helen Ostovich, of “Late Tudor and Stuart Drama: Gender, Performance, and Material Culture,” for Medieval Institute Publications. Research and teaching interests include, Shakespeare, Early Modern English drama, gender studies, sexuality, political history, history of women, marriage law, parrhesia, and feminist ethics.

For more about my work, please visit my website.

she/her/hers

Education

PhD, English, University of Washington, 1997

BA, MA, English, California State University, Fresno, 1987, 1991

— Acting, Theater Production, Pacific Conservatory of Performing Arts, 1981-83

Other Publications

BOOKS

Alfar, Cristina León and Emily Sherwood, eds. Reading Mistress Elizabeth Bourne: Marriage, Separation, and Legal Controversies, Routledge, 2021.  “The Early Modern Englishwoman in Print, 1500-1750:  Contemporary Editions,” edited by Anne Prescott and Betty Travitsky. Preview the Introduction at Taylor & Francis. Follow @MistressBourne on Twitter!

Women and Shakespeare’s Cuckoldry Plays: Shifting Narratives of Marital Betrayal, Routledge, 2017.  “Women and Gender in the Early Modern World.” Now available in paperback!

Preview the introduction, available from Taylor and Francis.  Chapter one, “Early Modern Women’s Narratives of Marital Betrayal,” is available in Routledge’s Shakespeare Studies Chapter Sampler.

Fantasies of Female Evil: The Dynamics of Gender and Power in Shakespearean Tragedy.  Newark:  U of Delaware P, 2003.  (Available on Google Play Books and Questia, a library subscription service.)

ARTICLES

“Abandoning Tragedy in James Ijames Fat Ham,” Borrowers and Lenders, forthcoming.

“Feminist Authorship Studies.” The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Authorship. Edited by Rory Loughnane and Will Sharpe. Forthcoming.

“Speaking Truth to Power as Feminist Ethics in Richard III.”  Social Research: An International Quarterly, vol. 86, no. 3, Nov 2019, pp. 789-819.



“‘Let’s Consult together’: Women’s Agency and the Gossip Network in The Merry Wives of Windsor.”  Solicited for publication in The Merry Wives of Windsor:  New Critical Essays. Eds.  Phyllis Rackin and Evelyn Gajowski.  New York:  Routledge, 2015. 38-50.

“‘Proceed in Justice’: Narratives of Marital Betrayal in The Winter’s Tale.”  Solicited for publication in Justice, Women and Power in English Renaissance Drama, Edited by Andrew J. Majeske and Emily Detmer-Goebel.  Madison and Teaneck, N.J.:  Farleigh Dickinson UP, 2009.  46-65.

“Elizabeth Cary’s Female Trinity: Breaking Custom with Mosaic Law in The Tragedy of Mariam.”   Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Volume 3, (2008):  61-103.

“Looking for Goneril and Regan.”  Privacy, Domesticity and Women in Early Modern England, ed. Corinne Abate. Aldershot, Hampshire, UK:  Ashgate, 2003.  167-198.

“‘Blood Will Have Blood’:  Power, Performance, and Lady Macbeth’s Gender Trouble.”  Jx: A Journal in Culture and Criticism.  2.2 (1998): 179-207.

“King Lear’s ‘Immoral’ Daughters and the Politics of Kingship.”  Exemplaria:  A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies.  8.2 (1996):  375-400.

“Staging the Feminine Performance of Desire:  Masochism in The Maid’s Tragedy.”   Papers on Language and Literature.  31.3  (1995):  313-333.

EDITING

Series Editor, with Helen Ostovich, “Late Tudor and Stuart Drama:  Gender, Performance, and Material Culture.” Medieval Institute Publications — MIP — The University Press at Kalamazoo.

Blog Posts

  • Blog (Cristina León Alfar, 2021-06-25)
  • Welcome to our Web Site! (Society for the Study of Women in the Renaissance, New York, CUNY, 2017-05-02)
  • SSWR NYC (Society for the Study of Women in the Renaissance, New York, CUNY, 2017-05-02)

Projects

“Isabella’s Feminist Ethics in Measure for Measure,” an article in progress.

“Feminist Ethics and Emilia’s Sacrifice of Happiness in The Two Noble Kinsmen,” an article in progress.

Upcoming Talks and Conferences

“Feminist Ethics and Complaint in The Two Noble Kinsmen” SAA, Minneapolis, 2023.

Memberships

MLA, SAA, RSA, SSEMW

 

Cristina León Alfar

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@clalfar

Active 1 month ago