Adam Rzepka

Biography

I teach a wide range of interconnected subjects, including courses on graphic novels, the history of utopias, the politics of emotion, revolutionary poetics, and contemporary Marxism — but my areas of specialization are early modern literature and critical theory, and I often teach the English Department's surveys in these areas. My research focuses on the soul as a dynamic system in early modern faculty psychology, and on the ways in which engagements with this system animated theatrical performance. My primary book project, Making Experience: Shakespeare and the Art of Immediacy, undertakes an archeology of “experience” as a rapidly changing concept in early modern discourse, and argues for Shakespeare’s theater as a crucial testing ground for its knowledge claims. A second book project, Anima: The Soul in Motion of the Renaissance Stage, considers the importance of dynamism in performances of the soul. Work related to these projects has been published in Shakespeare Quarterly, Shakespeare Studies, Renaissance Drama, and multiple edited volumes from Oxford University Press, Edinburgh University Press, Routledge, and others. Outside of Montclair, I am a strong public advocate for academic freedom, students' freedom of inquiry, and the reform of corporatized governance structures in higher education. Most semesters, I also teach in prisons.

Education

• BA, Harvard University
• PhD, University of Chicago

Resume/CV

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Research

Early modern drama, literature, and culture; performance and reception studies; history of science, especially physiology, psychology, and atomism; critical theory.