Alexandra Kennedy
Bio
Alexandra Kennedy (she/her) is a PhD candidate currently at work on a dissertation that explores representations of virginity and subjectivity in English literature from 1590 to 1740. She has teaching experience in first-year composition, the History of Literatures in English I (from Beowulf to Jefferson), and Shakespeare. Her academic interests include gender and sexuality studies, women’s writing, the history of medicine, and manuscript studies. You can find a sample of her writing at The Recipes Project, in Manuscripts on My Mind, and forthcoming in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women’s Writing. She has presented work on the representation of professional women in Restoration comedy at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conference (2018), participated in the Folger Institute’s “Intersecting the Sexual: Modes of Early Modern Embodiment” Symposium (2019), and completed a Rare Book School-University of Virginia Fellowship (2019/20). She will give a paper on gender, performance, and Thomas Killigrew’s autograph revisions to The Parson’s Wedding at the upcoming “Points of Interest: Early Modern Punctuation, On and Off the Page” conference. Before beginning her studies at the University of Virginia, Alexandra received her MSt in English (1550-1700) from the University of Oxford, and her BA in English from Middlebury College.
Areas of Interest: 17th C British, 18th C British, Gender and Sexuality, Women's Writing, History of Medicine, Material Culture
Degrees
MSt, English (1550-1700), University of Oxford, 2016
BA, English, summa cum laude, Middlebury College, 2014
Minors: Spanish, Theatre
Honors and Awards
2019-2020 Rare Book School-University of Virginia Fellowship
2014 Mary Dunning Thwing English Prize (for best-written work by a female student in Middlebury College’s English and American Literatures Department)
2013 Phi Beta Kappa
2013 Senior Research Project Supplement Grant, Middlebury College Undergraduate Research Office
2011-2013 Helen Coldwell Riccio Memorial Scholarship
2010-2013 Middlebury College Scholar (highest academic honor)
Conference Presentations
“‘Yea, and I Will Be Very Wary’: Representations of Working Women’s Precarity on the Restoration Stage,” American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, March 2019
“Working Women on the Restoration Stage,” MSt English (1550-1700) Student Conference, University of Oxford, May 2016
Publications
“Mary Napier’s ‘Snaile Milke’: Transmission, Materiality, and Medical Practice.” The Recipes Project, 30 Nov. 2017, https://recipes.hypotheses.org/10153.
“Traditions of Envy, Madness, and Tragedy in Unamuno’s Abel Sánchez and The Bible.” With Marta Manrique-Gómez in Madness, Love, and Tragedy in 19th and 20th Century Spain (ed. Manrique-Gómez), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013, pp. 55-82.
Class Schedule
Tu/Th 3:30-4:45