English and Creative Writing

Professor Philip Schwyzer

Professor Philip Schwyzer

Professor
English and Creative Writing

Philip Schwyzer is a specialist in early modern English literature, with interests including William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, and the literature of personal and cultural memory. Much of his research happens on borders and boundaries, including those between the Middle Ages and the early modern period, between literature and archaeology, and between England and Wales. His books include Shakespeare and the Remains of Richard III (2013), Archaeologies of English Renaissance Literature (2007), and Literature, Nationalism, and Memory in Early Modern England and Wales (2004).

He is Principal Investigator on the Leverhulme Trust Research Project Shakespearean Graves (launching September 2025). Other recent projets include Religious Conflict and Community in Exeter 1500-1800, funded by the Leverhulme Trust; Inventor of Britain: The Complete Works of Humphrey Llwyd, funded by the AHRC; Deploying the Dead (DEEPDEAD), funded by HERA; and the Past in its Place Project, funded by the ERC. He is editing Michael Drayton’s great topographical and historical poem, Poly-Olbion, with Professor Andrew McRae, and was Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded Poly-Olbion Project.


Research supervision:

I always welcome inquiries from potential research students. In recent years I have supervised doctoral dissertations on subjects including Shakespeare and the Jacobean court; Shakespeare and memory; Shakespeare and possible worlds theory; death and the uncanny in Renaissance drama; the representation of Turks and Moors in Renaissance drama; and the representation of Boudica in early modern English literature. Some of my former students now teach at universities in countries including Britain, France, China, and Egypt.

 

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