Syllabus
Objective & Goals
Through books, podcasts, lectures, online courses, and film, I will gain a deeper understanding of medieval and early modern England, the English Renaissance, Shakespeare and his entire canon, Elizabethan theatre, and the Tudor dynasty.
I will start by exploring England and the Tudors broadly speaking, then narrow my focuses down depending on interests.
I will read and study all 36 Shakespeare plays.
I will revisit works such as The Canterbury Tales and Paradise Lost and consider how the major works framing the Renaissance period contributed to everyday life and ideas.
I will learn more about King Arthur and how his stories influenced English culture over time.
I will further explore the history of London as a city.
Reading Lists
English History, The Wars of the Roses, and the Tudors
(Full Shakespeare and London reading lists coming soon)
Reading Responses and Book Reviews
I will document my reading and learning through written responses, book reviews, and short posts.
In graduate school, our research studies professor had us write 3-4 page responses to readings and findings each week with cited sources. Rather than make an original argument, each response simply collated research and presented a general thought response to the material. In my reading responses, I will not be aiming to make original arguments, but rather to collect and present what I’ve learned about a topic or person in an attempt to simply gather my thoughts and lay them out. This exercise is meant to aid in my learning process, not to present new and original arguments. I will explore various sides of particular historical thoughts and arguments, but none of the research or arguments presented will be my own or original, but rather that of historians and independent researchers whose work I’ve consulted. I will attribute all ideas to their owners.
For books I especially enjoy, I’ll write book reviews to summarize my learnings and think through why I enjoyed that particular piece of scholarship.
Group Discussions
In order to engage with learning communities, I will
participate in Talking Tudors’ book clubs
tune in to Talking Tudors’ live discussions
join The Tudor Learning Circle
attend TudorCon, online in 2025 and in person in 2026
Study Abroad Pilgrimage
As a “study abroad” component, I am to travel to England within the next couple of years on a solo pilgrimage, immersing myself in learning and writing for two full weeks. I’ll start in London, spend a couple days at Windsor Castle, move to Statford-upon-Avon, then journey to Hever Castle in Kent, where I’ll spend three days and nights surrounded by the ghosts of the Boleyns. I’ll finish off with a few last days in London. While there, I’ll see Six the musical on Broadway (again), whatever is playing at the Globe, and hope to catch a performance still running of Maggie O’Ferrell’s Hamnet.
To map out each site, tomb, painting, etc that I want to visit while there, I’m consulting and drawing from the following books:
A Visitor's Companion to Tudor England by Suzannah Lipscomb
In the Footsteps of Anne Boleyn by Sarah Morris and Natalie Grueninger
In the Footsteps of the Six Wives of Henry VIII by Sarah Morris and Natalie Grueninger
In addition, as I move through my reading list and listen to podcasts, I am compiling notes of what I want to see and where it’s located.
Dissertation
In place of a longform dissertation, I’ll aim to complete a historical fiction novel rooted in early modern England. The time frame will be set somewhere between the reigns of Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I. I’ll use all the research I’ve performed to craft characters appropriate to the time, demonstrate everyday life in Tudor England, and perhaps peer inside a Shakespearean theatre.
Using a dual timeline, I’ll explore a narrative of a present-day woman who has left the States to teach abroad in London, who finds her story colliding with an Elizabethan woman’s. There will be ghosts. More to come!
Questions Literally No One’s Ever Asked
Why are you doing this?
To maintain my sanity through learning and to document my learning. To demonstrate to myself that although I am now a corporate girlie, I am first, foremost, and always, a reader and a scholar.
Who do you think is going to read this?
Maybe no one. (Maybe you?) Putting this online is less to be seen by others and more of a way to keep myself accountable and add to my online portfolio.
Will you market or push this project into visibility?
Nah. Back at Press Pause Press, we believed in flinging art into the void and seeing who might find it. I don’t have the energy to make a Substack, ask people to read about my academic obsessions, or market myself (I spend all day marketing banking software; the last thing I want to sell is myself. Yuck.) What I am gonna do is use what I’ve learned from my day job about SEO and search traffic, etc, and see if I can push myself into visibility organically. It would be cool if I could. I kinda just don’t care if I don’t.
To learn more about this project, you can check out my original overview: My Back-Alley PhD.