Dr Tom Rutter

School of English

Senior Lecturer in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama

English Tom Rutter
Profile picture of English Tom Rutter
t.rutter@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 8473

Full contact details

Dr Tom Rutter
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

I arrived at the University of Sheffield in 2012 after six years at Sheffield Hallam University, before which I taught at University College London (where I took my PhD) and then at London South Bank University. Before that, I studied for my BA at St John’s College, Oxford.

My main area of expertise is Renaissance literature, especially drama. My PhD explored the representation of work on the early modern stage; when rewriting my thesis as a book I became increasingly interested in playing companies and how they bring together the activities of disparate groups such as dramatists, actors, audiences, patrons, theatre owners and booksellers, offering a way of linking dramatic production to wider forces in society. This 'repertory approach' informed my second monograph, which focused on a single company, the Admiral’s Men. My main current project is on early modern drama and science.

I am co-director of the Sheffield Centre for Early Modern Studies.

Research interests

In 2017 I published a book about the Admiral’s Men, having produced several essays and articles about plays in their repertory. I also have a particular interest in the plays of Shakespeare (who didn’t write for the Admiral’s Men) and Marlowe, as well as in the institutional contexts of the early modern theatre. I recently co-edited (with Lisa Hopkins of Sheffield Hallam University) a collection of essays on the Cavendish family, and I am currently writing a book on Shakespeare and science.

I am an editor of the journal Shakespeare: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rshk20

Publications

Books

  • Rutter T (2017) Shakespeare and the Admiral's Men: Reading across Repertories on the London Stage, 1594–1600. Cambridge University Press. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Rutter TO (2012) The Cambridge Introduction to Christopher Marlowe. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Rutter T (2008) Work and Play on the Shakespearean Stage. Cambridge University Press. RIS download Bibtex download

Edited books

  • Dowd MM & Rutter T (Ed.) (2023) The Arden Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama: Perspectives on Culture, Performance and Identity. London: Arden Shakespeare. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Rutter T & Hopkins L (Ed.) (2020) A Companion to the Cavendishes. Leeds: Arc Humanities Press. RIS download Bibtex download

Journal articles

Chapters

  • Dowd MM & Rutter T (2023) Introduction In Dowd MM & Rutter T (Ed.), The Arden Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama (pp. 1-17). RIS download Bibtex download
  • Rutter T (2020) The Cavendishes and Ben Jonson In Hopkins L & Rutter T (Ed.), A Companion to the Cavendishes (pp. 107-125). Leeds: Arc Humanities Press. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Rutter T (2020) Tamburlaine the Weather Man In McInnis D (Ed.), Tamburlaine: A Critical Reader (pp. 107-128). London: Arden Shakespeare. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Rutter T (2016) The Spanish Tragedy and Virgil In Rist T (Ed.), The Spanish Tragedy: A Critical Reader (pp. 153-174). London: Bloomsbury Publishing. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Rutter T (2016) The communities of George Chapman’s All Fools In Johnson A, Sell R & Wilcox A (Ed.), Community-Making in Early Stuart Theatres: Stage and Audience (pp. 218-238). Abingdon: Routledge. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Rutter T (2015) Tamburlaine: Parts One and Two In Deats SM (Ed.), Christopher Marlowe at 450 (pp. 51-70). Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Rutter T (2013) The Professional Theatre and Marlowe In Smith E & Bartels E (Ed.), Marlowe in Context (pp. 262-272). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Rutter T (2011) _Englishmen for My Money_: Work and Social Conflict? In Dowd MM & Korda N (Ed.), Working Subjects in Early Modern English Drama (pp. 87-99). Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Rutter T (2009) Adult Playing Companies 1603 to 1613, The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre (pp. 72-87). Oxford: Oxford University Press. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Rutter T () Texts and Performances in the Age of Elizabeth, A Companion to British Literature (pp. 181-196). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd RIS download Bibtex download

Book reviews

Other

Research group

I am currently supervising PhDs on Renaissance literature and the Gothic, and on Shakespeare and the elements. Recent PhDs include dissertations on cloth in the plays of Thomas Middleton and an edition of Samuel Daniel’s Cleopatra.

I would welcome applications to do postgraduate work on Renaissance drama, particularly in the areas of Shakespeare, Marlowe, repertory studies, and early modern science.

Teaching activities

I teach on the following modules:

  • LIT113: Foundations in Literary Study
  • LIT114: Shakespeare
  • LIT120: Renaissance to Revolution
  • LIT254: Christopher Marlowe
  • LIT6047: Early Modern Books
  • LIT646: Renaissance Transformations  
  • EGH601: Shakespeare and Early Women Dramatists
  • EGH602 Research Methods In English Studies 
  • EGH629: Pastoral Literature


I am also programme director for the MA English Literature programme.