Melissa Pullara

Melissa Pullara completed her Ph.D in English Literature with a specialization in early modern drama at Carleton University, and received her M.A and B.A (Honours) in English from Queen’s University. Her doctoral thesis analyzed how the psychological affects of human encounters with the supernatural in a variety of early modern plays (including those by George Chapman, John Marston, Thomas Middleton, and William Shakespeare) implicitly manifest socio-political critiques of 16th and 17th century English gender and power systems. Her recent work focuses on the link between early modern accusations of witchcraft and modern discourse surrounding female abuse, looking particularly at how the dramatic revival and reinterpretation of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays where women are demonized as witches resonate differently in the #MeToo era.

She has circulated her work in a wide scope of peer-reviewed publications, including the Journal of Marlowe Studies, an anthology series on Witchcraft and Religion, and the Oxford English Research Journal, and she has presented her research at over twenty conferences organized by early modern studies associations including the Shakespeare Association of America, the Renaissance Society of America, and the British Shakespeare Association.

She has had the opportunity to teach a diverse array of courses, from fantasy and science fiction literature to medieval and early modern world history. But she loves teaching early modern drama most, particularly non-Shakespearean texts. For the 2022-2023 academic year, she will be teaching the following courses:

• ENGL1103 Fundamentals of Clear Writing
• ENGL2011 English Literature to 1660
• ENGL2263 Shakespeare and Film
• ENGL3263 Shakespeare’s Predecessors and Contemporaries
• ENGL3269 Shakespeare Now