
Dr. Marguerite Tassi
Areas of Expertise
- Classics
- Drama
- English
- Literature
- Religion
- Shakespeare
- Theatre
Biography
A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Professor Marguerite A. Tassi joined the faculty at the University of Nebraska at Kearney in 1997. Prior to her current appointment, she taught for two years at Middlebury College as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Dramatic Literature. She has published three books: The Scandal of Images: Iconoclasm, Eroticism, and Painting in Early Modern English Drama (Susquehanna UP, 2005), Women and Revenge in Shakespeare: Gender, Genre, and Ethics (Susquehanna UP, 2011), and Poetry for Kids: William Shakespeare (MoonDance Press, 2018). A fourth book, Creatively Expanding the Premodern: Historical and Literary Afterlives, co-authored with Drs. Carole Levin, Christine Stewart and Julia Griffin, is forthcoming from Routledge. Dr. Tassi currently works with an international research team funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation on the project “Shakespeare’s Religious Afterlives: Text, Reception and Performance.” She has been an invited speaker at international conferences in England, France, Spain, and Singapore (the latter two online), as well as conferences and universities across the United States. She is co-editor with Dr. Carole Levin of two series: New Interdisciplinary Approaches to Early Modern Culture: Confluences and Contexts (Routledge) and Early Modern Cultural Studies (University of Nebraska Press)
Education
- 1993 Ph. D., Claremont Graduate School
- 1989 M. A., The University of Virginia
- 1987 B. A., Columbia University
Teaching Specialties
- Shakespeare
- Literature of the English Renaissance
- Early English Literature, Chaucer to Milton
- History of Drama and Theatre
- Literary Classics of the Western World
- Ancient Greek Drama and Epic Poetry
- Wild Justice: Women and Revenge in Western Literature
Selected Journal Articles and Book Chapters
- “Prajñāpāramitā and the Buddhist Path of Wisdom in King Lear.” Shakespeare and Wisdom: Ethical, Ecumenical, and Ecological Horizons. Ed. Julia Reinhard Lupton and Unhae Park Langis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024, 171-199.
- “Teaching Romeo and Juliet with Cue Scripts,” in Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” Joseph M. Ortiz. 2nd edition. Modern Language Association, 2024, 102-110.
- “Pursuing Contentment and Liberation in the Forest of Arden: Hindu and Buddhist Resonances in As You Like It.” SEDERI Yearbook of the Spanish and Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies 33 (2023): 57-80.
- "The Way of the Bodhisattva: A Buddhist Understanding of King Lear," Critical Survey 35.2 (Summer 2023): 80-91.
- "'Who Hath Martyred Thee?': Responding to the Broken Image of the Body in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus," in L'Image brisée aux xvi e et xvii e siècles Breaking the Image in the Renaissance. Ed. Agnès Lafont, Christian Belin, Nicholas Myers. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2019, 119-37.
- “Rapture and Horror: A Phenomenology of Theatrical Invisibility in Macbeth,” Explorations in Renaissance Culture 44 (2018): 1-26.
- “The Avenging Daughter in King Lear.” Revenge and Gender in Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Ed. Lesel Dawson and Fiona McHardy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018, 111-21.
- "Tears for Hecuba: Empathy and Maternal Bereavement in Golding’s Translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.” Scholars and Poets Talk About Queens. Ed. Carole Levin. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan Press, 2015, 7-23.
- “Martyrdom and Memory: Elizabeth Curle’s Portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots.” The Emblematic Queen: Extra-Literary Representations of Early Modern Queenship. Debra Barrett-Graves. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013, 101-32 .
- “The ‘new Gorgon’: Eros, Terror, and Violence in Macbeth.” Shakespeare’s Erotic Mythology and Ovidian Renaissance Culture. Agnès Lafont. Surrey, England: Ashgate Press, 2013, 155-70.
Awards and Grants
- Leland Holdt/Security Mutual Distinguished Faculty Award, UNK, 2017.
- Nebraska Arts Council Grant, 2017.
- Nebraska Humanities Council Grant, 2017.
- Pratt-Heins Award for Outstanding Teaching, UNK, 2009.
- The Honors Program Faculty Member of the Year, co-recipient, UNK, 2009
- Mortar Board Award for Excellence in Teaching, UNK, 2009
- National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Grant, “Shakespeare’s Playhouses: Inside and Out,” an institute held at Staunton, VA and London, England, July 7-August 9, 2002.
- Exceptional Performance Award, English Dept., UNK, 2001.
- Mary Major Crawford Award in Shakespeare, English, UNK, 1999, 2001.