Dr Archie Cornish

I studied English as an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, before a Masters degree at Cambridge. I returned to Oxford for my DPhil (PhD), which I completed in 2020. My doctoral thesis considered Renaissance allegory from a spatial point of view: I was interested in what happens when abstract concepts are turned into spaces, and how the cultural associations of various kinds of spaces – palaces, hovels, caves – affect their meaning in allegory. I paid particular attention to the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser, but my interests are wide, and in my new role at Sheffield I am working as Research Associate on ‘Penniless’, an AHRC-funded project about precarity in the work and world of Thomas Nashe. My published work so far includes a comparative essay on Spenser and Seamus Heaney as poets dwelling in Ireland, and I am at work on converting my thesis into a monograph provisionally entitled Spenser’s Dwelling Places.

I’ve taught early modern and contemporary literature, as well as literary theory, as a Lecturer at Oxford. From 2021-22 I taught courses there on Shakespeare. I value teaching and communication, and at Sheffield will be working on a series of podcasts exploring Nashe’s precarious world. Alongside my academic career, I’m also a published poet and writer of fiction and have worked in improvised performance. I’ve delivered talks and lectures in a variety of formats and believe in the potential of the humanities to do good, both in and beyond the academy.