Thomas Herron works on Shakespeare as well as the early modern poet Edmund Spenser and Irish plantation, with interest in connections to Sir Walter Raleigh and Thomas Harriot. He has a strong interest in medieval and early modern Irish history, archaeology, and culture. His teaching experience and interests include Shakespeare, Milton, Sir Philip Sidney, composition, creative writing (poetry) and general literature surveys. He is the editor of the multi-disciplinary journal Explorations in Renaissance Culture.
Degrees
B.A. Carleton College, MN
M.A. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Primary Areas of Research/Teaching
Renaissance Britain and Ireland
Irish Studies and Archaeology
Spenser and Shakespeare
Courses Taught
6131: Milton and Seventeenth-Century Literature
6121: Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature
4090: Shakespeare: The Tragedies
4080: Shakespeare: The Comedies
3000: History of British Literature to 1700
2000: Interpreting Literature
1200: Composition
1100: Composition
1000: Appreciating Literature
Special Topics
Irish Literary Survey and Cultural Studies
Director of the ECU Summer Study Abroad in Ireland
Selected Publications
"Pale martyr: politicizing Richard Stanihurst’s Aeneis (1582).” Dublin and the Pale in the Renaissance. Ed. Thomas Herron and Michael Potterton (Four Courts Press, forthcoming 2011).
Co-editor (with Willy Maley), Sidney Journal 29.1 (2011) (special issue on Sir Henry Sidney).
“Irish Archaeology and the Poetry of Edmund Spenser: Content and Context.” Plantation in Early Modern Ireland. Ed. James Lyttleton and Colin Rynne (Four Courts Press, 2009), 229-47.
“More Hot Air: A Large and Serious Response to Tom McFaul.” Connotations: A Journal for Critical Debate 19.1-3 (2009/2010), 165-75.
Sir Walter Ralegh in Ireland by Sir John Pope Hennessy (University College Dublin Press, 2009) [ed.].
“Edmund Spenser’s Mother Hubberds Tale (1591) and Adam Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland.” Studies in Philology 105.3 (Summer, 2008), 336-387.
Spenser’s Irish Work: Poetry, Plantation and Colonial Reformation (Ashgate, 2007).
Ireland in the Renaissance, 1540-1660 (Four Courts Press 2007) [contributor and co-editor with Michael Potterton].
“Climbing to Machu Picchu on Pablo Neruda’s Inca Trail” (creative non-fiction). Garnet: The Hampden-Sydney Magazine 111.2 (Fall 2003): 31-6.
