People_
Professor Liam Semler
BA (Hons) PhD Macq.
Professor of Early Modern Literature
Discipline of English and Writing
Discipline of English and Writing
Phone
+61 2 9351 6852
Address
A20 - John Woolley Building
The University of Sydney
I teach, supervise and research widely in the field of early modern English literature. I was director of the Medieval and Early Modern Centre in 2012-13 and president of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association from 2009-13. I have held visiting fellowships at the Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, Oxford Brookes University, and the Universities of Nottingham, Warwick, Essex and Auckland.
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- Shakespeare pedagogy and the teaching and learning of literature at school and university
- The classical inheritance in English Renaissance literature
- Early modern women’s writing
- Early modern literature and the visual arts with particular reference to ‘mannerism’ and the ‘grotesque’ from 1500-1700
Medieval and Renaissance English literature and culture.
- ENGL 1002 Narratives of Romance and Adventure
- ENGL 2650 Reading Poetry
- ENGL 2658 Love and Desire in Early Modern England
- ENGL 3651 Christopher Marlowe
- ENGL 6101 Approaches to Genre
- ENGL 6982 Shakespeare and Modernity
- ENGL 6985 Shakespeare and his Contemporaries
I welcome inquiries from potential postgraduate students who might be interested to pursue thesis work in any aspect of early modern English literature (my specialist period is 1500-1700) especially including my three focal areas described above. Some of the research areas explored by my current and graduated students include: poetry and philosophy in the work of Francis Bacon; spying and surveillance in the works of Shakespeare; Shakespeare and complexity theory; Shakespeare in prison theatre; Shakespeare and pedagogy at school and university; Shakespeare and Australian Young Adult fiction.
- ‘Better Strangers: Creativity and Complexity in Literature and Drama Learning’ (2020-2023). This is a collaborative research project between some members of the English Department, University of Sydney, and the school Barker College (Hornsby). The project explores novel and imaginative approaches to teaching and learning in formal contexts such as schools and universities. It is a sequel to the ‘Shakespeare Reloaded’ linkage project (2008-10).
- ‘Margaret Cavendish’s Early Works.’ This project explores the philosophical and poetic engagements of Cavendish’s early works (from 1649-56).
| Project title | Research student |
|---|---|
| ‘To cultivate minds, improve their intellectuals, and season tender hearts’: Literary, ideological and pedagogical foundations of Early Modern women writers | Susannah ARTHUR |
| Silenced stories of mothers in schools: reclaiming the complexity, subjectivity, voice and emotionality of mothering identities in NSW schools. | Natalie BLUHDORN |
| Moral Philosophy in the Texts of Shakespeare’s Tragedies | Amanda YAU |
Selected publications
Reimagining Shakespeare Education: Teaching and Learning through Collaboration
(Cambridge University Press, 2023)
Coriolanus: A Critical Reader
(Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021)
The Early Modern Grotesque: English Sources and Documents 1500-1700
(Routledge, 2019)
Storytelling: Critical and Creative Approaches
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)
Teaching Shakespeare and Marlowe: Learning vs. the System
(Bloomsbury, 2013)
Teaching Shakespeare Beyond the Centre: Australasian Perspectives
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)
What is the Human Australian Voices from the Humanities
(Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2012)
Eliza's Babes or the Virgin's Offering: A Critical Edition
(Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2001)
The English Mannerist Poets and the Visual Arts
(Associated University Presses, 1998)
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Publications
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Books
- Semler, L. (2019). The Early Modern Grotesque: English Sources and Documents 1500-1700. New York: Routledge. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2013). Teaching Shakespeare and Marlowe: Learning vs. the System. London: Bloomsbury. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2003). Eliza's Babes; Or The Virgin's Offering, Early Modern Englishwoman Facsimiles of Essential Works, Printed Writings 1641-1700. London: Ashgate.
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Edited Books
- Semler, L., Hansen, C., Manuel, J. (2023). Reimagining Shakespeare Education: Teaching and Learning through Collaboration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2021). Coriolanus: A Critical Reader. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. [More Information]
- Shaw, J., Kelly, P., Semler, L. (2013). Storytelling: Critical and Creative Approaches. Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. [More Information]
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Book Chapters
- Semler, L., Hansen, C., Manuel, J. (2023). Introduction: Projecting Shakespeare. In Liam Semler, Claire Hansen, Jacqueline Manuel (Eds.), Reimagining Shakespeare Education: Teaching and Learning through Collaboration, (pp. 1-19). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [More Information]
- Hood, A., Semler, L. (2023). The Better Strangers/Shakespeare Reloaded Project: Seeking Educational Ardenspaces. In Liam Semler, Claire Hansen, Jacqueline Manuel (Eds.), Reimagining Shakespeare Education: Teaching and Learning through Collaboration, (pp. 69-84). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [More Information]
- Manuel, J., Hansen, C., Semler, L. (2022). An activist democratic model of teacher professional learning: The Teaching and Learning Caskets Imaginarium. In A. Goodwyn, J. Manuel, R. Roberts, L. Scherff, W. Sawyer, C. Durrant et al. (Eds.), International Perspectives on English Teacher Development: From Initial Teacher Education to Highly Accomplished Professional, (pp. 200-214). London, United Kingdom: Routledge. [More Information]
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Journals
- Semler, L. (2024). SysEd and English: The Work of Literature in an Over-Systematised Enlightenment. Journal of Language, Literature and Culture, 71(1), 41-56. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2023). Teaching Taylor Swift's 'Midnights' and Shakespeare's Sonnets Together: Affinity, Pointing and the 'Journey in my Head'. Australian Journal of English Education, 58(1), 7-21.
- Semler, L., Hansen, C., Abbott Bennett, K. (2021). Shakespeare Redrawn: Reflections on Shakespeare Reloaded's COVID-19 Lockdown Activity. Metaphor, 2, 15-21.
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Magazine / Newspaper Articles
- Semler, L. (2023). Should Taylor Swift be taught alongside Shakespeare? A professor of literature says yes. The Conversation.
Reference Works
- Semler, L. (2001). Stephen Bateman. In A.F. Kinney & David Swain (Eds.), Tudor England: An Encyclopedia. (pp. 67-68). New York: Taylor and Francis.
Expand all
2024
- Semler, L. (2024). SysEd and English: The Work of Literature in an Over-Systematised Enlightenment. Journal of Language, Literature and Culture, 71(1), 41-56. [More Information]
2023
- Semler, L., Hansen, C., Manuel, J. (2023). Introduction: Projecting Shakespeare. In Liam Semler, Claire Hansen, Jacqueline Manuel (Eds.), Reimagining Shakespeare Education: Teaching and Learning through Collaboration, (pp. 1-19). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [More Information]
- Semler, L., Hansen, C., Manuel, J. (2023). Reimagining Shakespeare Education: Teaching and Learning through Collaboration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2023). Should Taylor Swift be taught alongside Shakespeare? A professor of literature says yes. The Conversation.
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2022
- Manuel, J., Hansen, C., Semler, L. (2022). An activist democratic model of teacher professional learning: The Teaching and Learning Caskets Imaginarium. In A. Goodwyn, J. Manuel, R. Roberts, L. Scherff, W. Sawyer, C. Durrant et al. (Eds.), International Perspectives on English Teacher Development: From Initial Teacher Education to Highly Accomplished Professional, (pp. 200-214). London, United Kingdom: Routledge. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2022). Shakespeare Reloaded's 'Shakeserendipity' Game: Pedagogy at the Edge of Chaos. In Diana E. Henderson and Kyle Sebastian Vitale (Eds.), Shakespeare and Digital Pedagogy Case Studies and Strategies, (pp. 198-210). London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. [More Information]
2021
- Semler, L. (2021). Coriolanus: A Critical Reader. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2021). Introduction. In Liam E. Semler (Eds.), Coriolanus: A Critical Reader, (pp. 1-14). London: Bloomsbury Publishing. [More Information]
- Semler, L., Hansen, C., Abbott Bennett, K. (2021). Shakespeare Redrawn: Reflections on Shakespeare Reloaded's COVID-19 Lockdown Activity. Metaphor, 2, 15-21.
2020
- Semler, L. (2020). Three Tents for 'Tamburlaine': Resources and Approaches for Teaching the Play. In David McInnis (Eds.), Tamburlaine: A Critical Reader, (pp. 167-191). London: Bloomsbury Publishing. [More Information]
2019
- Semler, L. (2019). Shakespeeding into 'Macbeth' and 'The Tempest': Teaching with the Shakespeare Reloaded Website. In Sidney Homan (Eds.), How and Why We Teach Shakespeare: College Teachers and Directors Share How They Explore the Playwright's Works with Their Students, (pp. 119-127). New York: Routledge. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2019). The Early Modern Grotesque: English Sources and Documents 1500-1700. New York: Routledge. [More Information]
2018
- Semler, L. (2018). Doubtful Battle: Marlowe's Soliloquies. In A. D. Cousins, Daniel Derrin (Eds.), Shakespeare and the Soliloquy in Early Modern English Drama, (pp. 43-55). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [More Information]
2017
- Semler, L. (2017). The Ken Watson Address: Seeds of Time, Part 1: SysEd and the Leviathan of Learning. Metaphor, 2017(1), 8-14. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2017). The Seeds of Time, Part 2: Presentism and Selfie Culture. Metaphor, 2017 (2), 5-13. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2017). The Seeds of Time, Part 3: Macbeth Reading against Extinction. Metaphor, 2017 (4), 4-14. [More Information]
2016
- Semler, L. (2016). Prosperous Teaching and the Thing of Darkness: Raising a Tempest in the Classroom. Cogent Arts & Humanities, 3, 1-10. [More Information]
2015
- Semler, L. (2015). Nation, nature, and poetics: transitions and claspes in Denham's 'Coopers Hill' and Cavendish's Poems and Fancies. In A. D. Cousins, Geoffrey Payne (Eds.), Home and Nation in British Literature from the English to the French Revolutions, (pp. 19-32). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [More Information]
2014
- Semler, L. (2014). The Caroline Grotesque in Verse: Robert Herrick, Richard Flecknoe and John Taylor. Yearbook of English Studies, 44, 137-155.
2013
- Semler, L. (2013). 'Fortify yourself in your decay': Sounding Rhyme and Rhyming Effects in Shakespeare's Sonnets. In Jonathan Post (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeares Poetry, (pp. 449-466). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2013). Emergence in Ardenspace: Shakespeare pedagogy, As You Like It, and modus Iferandi. In Kate Flaherty, Penny Gay, L E Semler (Eds.), Teaching Shakespeare Beyond the Centre: Australasian Perspectives, (pp. 97-107). Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2013). Stories of Selves and Infidels: Walter Charleton's Letter to Margaret Cavendish (1655). In Jan Shaw, Philippa Kelly, L E Semler (Eds.), Storytelling: Critical and Creative Approaches, (pp. 191-210). Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. [More Information]
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2012
- Semler, L. (2012). "Loe an antick Persian": Orienting Anticality in Thomas Herbert's Travels (1634, 1638, 1664). In Matthias Bauer, Rudiger Pfeiffer-Rupp, Claudia Sasse and Ursula Wienen (Eds.), Sprache, Literatur, Kultur: Translatio delectat: Festschrift fur Lothar Cerny zum 65. Geburtstag, (pp. 141-156). Berlin: LIT Verlag.
- Semler, L. (2012). Margaret Cavendish's Early Engagement with Descartes and Hobbes: Philosophical Revisitation and Poetic Selection. Intellectual History Review, 22(3), 327-353. [More Information]
- Semler, L., Hodge, B., Kelly, P. (2012). What is the Human? Australian Voices from the Humanities. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
2011
- Semler, L. (2011). The magnetic attraction of Margaret Cavendish and Walter Charleton. In Not known (Eds.), Early Modern Englishwomen Testing Ideas, (pp. 55-72). TBC. [More Information]
2010
- Kelly, P., Semler, L. (2010). Introduction: Word and self estranged: topographies of meaning in Early Modern England. In Not known (Eds.), Word and Self Estranged in English Texts, 1550-1660, (pp. 1-11). TBC. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2010). The Ruins of Persepolis: Grotesque Perception in Thomas Herbert's Travels. In Not known (Eds.), Word and Self Estranged in English Texts, 1550-1660, (pp. 33-59). TBC.
- Kelly, P., Semler, L. (2010). Word and Self Estranged in English Texts, 1550-1660. TBC.
2009
- Semler, L. (2009). The Shakespeare reloaded Bard Blitz: a literary analysis and essay building module. Metaphor, (4), 30-44.
- Semler, L. (2009). Virtue Transformation and Exemplarity in the Lyfe of Johan Picus. In Cousins, A.D and Grace, D. (Eds.), A Companion to Thomas More, (pp. 95-113). USA: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
2006
- Semler, L. (2006). A Proximate Prince: The Gooey Business of 'Hamlet' Criticism. Sydney Studies in English, 32, 97-122.
- Semler, L. (2006). Designs on the Self: Inigo Jones, Marginal Writing and Renaissance Self-Assembly. In Ronald Bedford, Lloyd Davis, Philippa Kelly (Eds.), Early Modern Autobiography: Theories, Genres, Practices, (pp. 252-267). Ann Arbor MI USA: University of Michigan Press.
- Semler, L. (2006). Review: Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature. Early Modern Literary Studies, 12(1), 1-9.
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2005
- Semler, L. (2005). Mapping the Grotesque: Inventing and possessing the world in Early-Modern England. In Geraldine Barnes (with Gabrielle Singleton) (Eds.), Travel and Travellers from Bede to Dampier, (pp. 177-206). Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK): Cambridge Scholars Press.
- Semler, L. (2005). Marlovian Therapy: The Chastisement of Ovid in Hero and Leander. English Literary Renaissance, 35(2), 159-186. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2005). Review: Women and Religious Writing in Early Modern England. Early Modern Literary Studies, 11(1).
2004
- Semler, L. (2004). Antique-Work And Naked Boys: Animating The Tudor-Stuart Grotesque. Parergon, 21(1), 85-111. [More Information]
- Semler, L. (2004). Breaking The Ice To Invention: Henry Peacham's The Art Of Drawing (1606). Sixteenth Century Journal: journal of early modern studies, 35(3), 735-750.
- Semler, L. (2004). Creative Adoption In Eliza's Babes (1652): Puritan Refigurations Of Sibbes, Herrick, And Herbert. In D. Doerksen and C. Hodgkins (Eds.), Centered on the Word: Literature, Scripture, and the Tudor-Stuart Middle Way, (pp. 319-345). Newark USA: University of Delaware Press.
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2003
- Semler, L. (2003). Eliza's Babes; Or The Virgin's Offering, Early Modern Englishwoman Facsimiles of Essential Works, Printed Writings 1641-1700. London: Ashgate.
- Semler, L. (2003). Inigo Jones, Capricious Ornament And Plutarch's Wise Man. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 66, 123-142.
- Semler, L. (2003). Introductory Note. In Betty S.Travitsky; Anne L.Prescott; Robert C. Evans (Eds.), The Early Modern Englishwoman: A Facsimile Library of Essential Works: Series II: Printed Writings, 1641-1700: Part 2, (pp. ix-xvii). UK: Ashgate.
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2002
- Semler, L. (2002). Mannerist Donne: Showing Art in the Descriptive Verse Epistles and Elegies. In A.D. Cousins and Damian Grace (Eds.), Donne and the Resources of Kind, (pp. 40-58). United States: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
- Semler, L. (2002). Review: The Touch of the Real. Australian Humanities Review, 2002 (26).
- Semler, L. (2002). What God Hath Joined, Let No Man Separate Eliza's Babes and the Puritan Double Marriage. The Ben Jonson Journal: literary contexts in the age of Elizabeth, James, and Charles, 9, 171-191.
2001
- Semler, L. (2001). Eliza's Babes or the Virgin's Offering: A Critical Edition. United States: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
- Semler, L. (2001). Stephen Bateman. In A.F. Kinney & David Swain (Eds.), Tudor England: An Encyclopedia. (pp. 67-68). New York: Taylor and Francis.
- Semler, L. (2001). The Creed of Eliza's Babes (1652): Nakedness, Adam and Divinity. Albion: a quarterly journal concerned with British studies, 33(2), 185-217.
2000
- Semler, L. (2000). The Protestant Birth Ethic: Aesthetic, Political, and Religious Contexts for Eliza's Babes (1652). English Literary Renaissance, 30(3), 432-456. [More Information]
1998
- Semler, L. (1998). The English Mannerist Poets and the Visual Arts. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses.
Selected Grants
2019
- Shakespearean Echoes in Scottish-Australian Literary Culture, Griffiths H, Stacey R, Nicholson J, Semler L, Heavey K, Maley W, Maslen R, Office of Global Engagement/Partnership Collaboration Awards
- Better Strangers 4, Semler L, Gay P, Manuel J, Brady L, Hansen C, Christie W, Flaherty K, Barker College/Research Support
2011
- Putting Periodisation to Use: Exploring the Limits of Early Modernity, Gagne J, Gal O, Gaukroger S, Griffiths H, Maddox A, McIlvenna U, Parsons N, Semler L, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences/FASS Collaborative Research Scheme
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In the media
- 21/09/2024 - mentioned in Stage Whispers: Bell Shakespeare 2025 Season, Celebrating the Company’s 35th Anniversary
- 19/09/2024 - mentioned in ArtsHub: From rarely seen tragedy to popular history play: Bell Shakespeare launches 2025 season
- 08/03/2024 - quoted on Zaborona: Love, Forgiveness and Elections. How Taylor Swift Interested Philosophers and Why the American Right-wingers Hate Her
- 16/02/2024 - interviewed on ABC - Newcastle about Taylor Swift and the merits of using her songwriting as an example to teach literature
- 08/02/2024 - quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald: Pop star, philosopher, poet: Taylor Swift is shaking up how we think
- 08/02/2024 - guest on 702 ABC Sydney 'Drive': Interview about points of comparison between Shakespeare and Taylor Swift as a teaching tool
- 11/10/2022 - interviewed in The Sydney Morning Herald: HSC students turn away from harder English subjects in record numbers
