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Jeffrey Masten

Professor of English and Gender & Sexuality Studies

Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania

Jeffrey Masten (Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania) teaches in Gender & Sexuality Studies and English. His research includes articles on early women writers in English, as well as scholarship on the history of sexuality. His recent book, Queer Philologies: Sex, Language, and Affect in Shakespeare’s Time (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), focuses on the importance of the history of language for understanding the history of sexuality in Renaissance Europe.  He is also the author of Textual Intercourse: Collaboration, Authorship, and Sexualities in Renaissance Drama (Cambridge, 1997).  His essays on gender and sexuality have appeared in The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment: Gender, Sexuality, and Race, The Body in Parts, Early Women Writers 1600-1720, "Feminism in Time" (Modern Language Quarterly), GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Reading Mary Wroth, and Queering the Renaissance. He is currently editing Christopher Marlowe’s historical tragedy Edward II (Arden) and has published research on heresy, sodomy, and a newly discovered copy of the play in the Times Literary Supplement.  Masten's research was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for 2017.

Prof. Masten’s GSS courses include "The Drama of Homosexuality" and "Early Modern Sexualities." In 2006, he was named Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence. He directed the Gender Studies program from 2005-08 and has served as Director of Graduate Studies.  Masten's work in gender studies began as an undergraduate at Denison University, where he received the Women's Studies Thesis Prize in 1986 and now serves on the board of trustees.

Research and publications

Courses Taught

  • "The Drama of Homosexuality"
  • "Early Modern Sexualities"
  • Gender Studies Doctoral Colloquium