ACMRS (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies)

10/15/2026

Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene sought "to fashion a gentleman or noble person" through the instructive device of allegory. The knights of the story who embody Christian virtues like chastity, justice, and temperance must prevail over enemies like lust, perversion, and excess. Throughout the poem, these negative qualities are personified as blackened pagan, Islamic, or Indigenous characters. Three centuries later, D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation used the same chivalric allegory to bolster the political message of white supremacy in the Reformation era. Reading allegory as a political structure reveals how chivalric logic is still shaping national rhetoric about immigration, gender, race, and belonging.

Learn more on Throughlines: https://www.throughlines.org/suite-content/white-chivalry-in-the-faerie-queene

09/30/2026

ACMRS is hiring! We are seeking a program manager to join our ongoing Mellon Foundation-funded RaceB4Race initiative. Find the full position listing below and apply today!

Job Profile: Administrative Operations Specialist 3 Job Family: Administrative Operations Time Type: Full time Apply before 11:59 PM Arizona time the day before the posted End Date. Minimum Qualifications: Bachelor's degree and five (5) years of experience appropriate to the area of assignment/field...

09/29/2026

Four centuries of Black women have loved, performed, rewritten, and reclaimed Shakespeare. Curated and edited by Patricia Akhimie, to Hear Her Speak: Black Women and Shakespeare (Folger Shakespeare Library) is the first exhibition to gather their record, and its catalog is free to read online today: https://ow.ly/U08N50ZSIAF

09/22/2026

Our very own Madeline Sayet directed the first Tlingit opera in recorded history this month. "'Ḵutulagaaw' loosely translates to 'the war we are in.' The opera is performed in the Tlingit language and include a score grounded in Tlingit musical and performing arts traditions and events, some of which were formerly held in natural amphitheaters set in mountain valleys."

On Sept. 11, Sealaska Heritage Institute and Juneau’s Perseverance Theatre co-produced “Kutulagaaw: The Tlingit-Russian Battles,” the first Tlingit opera in recorded history.

09/21/2026

"The attacks on Shakespeare and on contemporary humanistic endeavors more broadly are a recognition of the power of humanist work to slip the leash of authoritarian control and to give rise to exciting and joyful new ways to understand and inhabit the world." - Jean E. Howard on Shakespeare's role in the next 250 years

Folger Shakespeare Library is the world's largest Shakespeare collection, the ultimate resource for exploring Shakespeare and his world. Shakespeare belongs to you. His world is vast. Come explore. Join us online, on the road, or in Washington, DC.

09/21/2026

If you find yourself at Ohio University this week, you're not going to want to miss this event with the brilliant Suzanne Coley—these books are art objects beyond description.

Suzanne Coley is a book artist, printmaker, and writer whose work engages textile art, printmaking, and embroidered bindings as forms of literary interpretation. Through a signature process she defines as Material Excavation, she recomposes fabric through stitching, layering, and formal transformati...

09/15/2026

Thrilled to see the third volume of The Bard in the Borderlands in PBS Uncovered's Latinx/Hispanic Heritage month lineup! The episode for this month's books goes live today at 8pm EDT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31aIvWah-eA

09/14/2026

"The Bard in the Borderlands" (ACMRS (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies)) a three-volume anthology of plays by Chicanx and Indigenous playwrights, explores the possibilities of retelling Shakespeare through the culture, language, and traditions of “la frontera,” or “the borderlands.” On the podcast, editors Kathryn Vomero Santos and Katherine Gillen and contributing playwright Andrew Siañez-De La O discuss how these works speak to Mexican American and Indigenous traditions. 🎙️ Listen to the full podcast at the link in our comments! ⬇️

09/11/2026

What can Canacee and the falcon from The Squire’s Tale teach us about whiteness, empathy, and racial belonging? Watch the full talk from Wan-Chuan Kao on Throughlines today.

Kao, Wan-Chuan. "The lap of whiteness in The Squire's Tale." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/the-lap-of-whiteness-in-the-squires-tale. [Date accessed].

09/08/2026

Make sure to check out the new episode of Shakespeare Unlimited featuring Bard in the Borderlands editors Katherine Gillen, Kathryn Vomero Santos, and featured playwright Andrew Siañez-De La O. Listen to the episode here:
https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/the-bard-in-the-borderlands/

You can read Bard in the Borderlands Vol. III for free online at https://asu.pressbooks.pub/bard-in-the-borderlands-volume-3/front-matter/contents/

From a re-imagining of The Tempest set in a Houston school gymnasium to Macbeth's Weird Sisters practicing brujería, the three-volume anthology The Bard in the Borderlands compiles fantastic transformations of Shakespeare by Chicanx and Indigenous playwrights.