Jean E. Howard

Jean E. Howard is  George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University where she teaches Renaissance Literature, Feminist Studies, and Literary Theory.  Her books include Shakespeare’s Art of Orchestration: Stage Technique and Audience Response (1984); The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England (1994); Endangering a Nation: A Feminist Account of Shakespeare’s English Histories (1997), co-written with Phyllis Rackin; and Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy 1598-1642 (2007).  The latter recently won the Barnard Hewitt Prize for the outstanding book of theater history for 2008.  In addition, Ms. Howard is one of the co-editors of The Norton Shakespeare and has edited seven collections of essays.  The recipient of ACLS, NEH, and Huntington, Folger, and Newberry Library Fellowships, she has also been President of the Shakespeare Association of America and an active member of many committees of the Modern Language Association.  As an administrator, Howard has served as a Trustee of Brown University, has chaired Columbia’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender, served as Columbia’s first Vice Provost for Diversity Initiatives, and currently is Chair of the Department of English and Comparative Literature.  She is working on two books: a study of the plays of the contemporary feminist dramatist Caryl Churchill, and a book on Renaissance tragedy.

During her 1999 Guggenheim Fellowship term, Ms. Howard studied the social role of the London commercial theater in the early seventeenth century.