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Biography
Before beginning my academic career, I worked for several years in the UK heritage sector, including at leadership level. I completed my PhD at the University of Birmingham's Shakespeare Institute in 2021. My AHRC-funded research considered the influence of the Jacobean dramatist Thomas Middleton on the preparation of Shakespearean scripts for revival in the years leading up to the publication of the Shakespeare First Folio in 1623. While undertaking and since earning my PhD, I have gained varied academic experience as a teacher and researcher, having previously taught at undergraduate and postgraduate level at the University of Birmingham and Shakespeare Institute, and as a freelance academic on schools outreach projects. I began working as an associate lecturer at the University of Warwick in September 2023, where I currently teach medieval and early modern literature to undergraduates. I joined the University of Nottingham as a postdoctoral research fellow in January 2024, where I am undertaking a 12-month AHRC-funded knowledge exchange project in partnership with Shakespeare's Schoolroom & Guildhall in Stratford-upon-Avon, investigating the use of the guildhall by early modern theatre companies for the performance of adapted versions of their plays while on tour outside London.
Expertise Summary
My primary research interests lie in the study of the early modern theatre, particularly with regard to how Elizabethan and Jacobean plays can be seen to intersect with the social and political concerns of the era. I have a particular expertise in the study of Shakespeare's contemporaries, especially Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe. I also maintain an active interest in the study of the text and physical books, and in practices of co-authorship in early modern drama. I have already published extensively on these topics, with articles in journals including Theatre Notebook and Critical Survey, and in edited collections of essays. I am also a contributing editor to the online database CADRE: Co-Authored Drama in Renaissance England (cadredb.net), for which I supplied the inaugural entry (on Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton's The Bloody Banquet) in 2023.
April 2024 saw the publication of my first book, an edited collection (co-edited with Anna L. Hegland and Sam Jermy) celebrating the legacy of the dramatist Thomas Middleton on the four-hundredth anniversary of his last and greatest theatrical success, A Game at Chess. My first monograph, which considers Middleton's final series of plays against the backdrop of the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in Europe between 1618 and 1624, is due to be published by Routledge in 2025.
In recognition of my early career research, I was elected to the Royal Historical Society as an Associate Fellow in 2022.
Teaching Summary
I am an experienced university teacher in medieval and early modern literatures, including the work of Shakespeare and contemporary dramatists. In the 2023-4 academic year, I have contributed to the… read more
Research Summary
My current research project is a knowledge exchange fellowship held in partnership with Shakespeare's Schoolroom & Guildhall, a heritage attraction and museum based in a Grade I listed building… read more
Recent Publications
WILLIAM DAVID GREEN, ANNA L. HEGLAND and SAM JERMY, eds., 2024. The Theatrical Legacy of Thomas Middleton, 1624-2024 Routledge.
WILLIAM DAVID GREEN, 2024. Our Other Shakespeare? The Legacy and Controversies of the Oxford Middleton. In: WILLIAM DAVID GREEN, ANNA L. HEGLAND and SAM JERMY, eds., The Theatrical Legacy of Thomas Middleton, 1624-2024 Routledge. 13-25
WILLIAM DAVID GREEN, 2024. Collaborating with the Dead: Reading the Anonymous Adapter in Early Modern Stage Revivals Critical Survey. 36(1), 30-43
WILLIAM DAVID GREEN, 2022. Murderous Distraction and the Downfall of the Tyrant in Thomas Middleton's The Lady's Tragedy. In: CHRISTINA GUTIERREZ-DENNEHY, ed., Kingship, Madness, and Masculinity on the Early Modern Stage: Mad World, Mad Kings Routledge. 101-117
I am an experienced university teacher in medieval and early modern literatures, including the work of Shakespeare and contemporary dramatists. In the 2023-4 academic year, I have contributed to the following module(s) at the University of Nottingham:
- ENGL2018 - Shakespeare and His Contemporaries on the Stage (Convenor: Dr. Anna Blackwell)
Current Research
My current research project is a knowledge exchange fellowship held in partnership with Shakespeare's Schoolroom & Guildhall, a heritage attraction and museum based in a Grade I listed building in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. The building in question, which dates back to 1420, has been described by the historian Michael Wood as "one of the most atmospheric, magical, and important buildings in the whole of Britain". Once the seat of local government in Stratford, with which William Shakespeare's father John held a close association, the upstairs of the guildhall also contained a small grammar school, at which a young William Shakespeare almost certainly gained his education. But there is a third aspect of the building's history which has thus far remained largely unexplored at the attraction: the guildhall's use as a place of theatrical performance by touring players. My project seeks to investigate this theatrical dimension of the building further, considering how touring companies would have adapted their plays to this alternative playing space. The project is expected to enable Shakespeare's Schoolroom & Guildhall to establish a new public exhibition and permanent interpretation, making an underappreciated aspect of Stratford's theatre history newly accessible in a public-facing way.
Past Research
I have previously produced research into early modern adaptation practices in text and performance. My PhD thesis, funded by the AHRC, examined the involvement of the dramatist Thomas Middleton in adapting several of Shakespeare's plays for revival prior to their inclusion in the Shakespeare First Folio of 1623. I have since conducted further research into adaptation in the early modern theatres, and have also specialised in research into Middleton as a significant Renaissance dramatist. My work has been published in several journals and edited collections, and my first book, the edited collection The Theatrical Legacy of Thomas Middleton, 1624-2024 (co-edited with Anna L. Hegland and Sam Jermy), was published by Routledge in April 2024.