Dr Diana Barnes
Lecturer in Literary Studies - Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education; School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
Biography
DIANA G. BARNES’ field of research is early modern literature with particular emphases on gender and the literary representation of nature and community. Her book Epistolary Community in Print, 1580-1664 was published with Ashgate in 2013. She has book chapters and journal articles on various C17th topics including Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor, Brilliana Harley’s wartime correspondence, Margaret Cavendish’s published plays and letters, Andrew Marvell’s challenging poem ‘Upon Appleton House’, and how early modern literature shaped the Australian settler-colonial mindset. Current research projects include a study of early modern women’s use of stoic discourse, emotions and letters, civility and early modern genres of community, cultures of compassion, and early modern bubbles.
Qualifications
Bachelor of Arts, Hons (Melb)
Master of Arts (Melb)
Diploma of Education (Melb)
Doctor of Philosophy (Melb)
Teaching Areas
Early Modern Literature including Shakespeare
Women’s writing
Modernism
Research Interests
Early Modern Literature
Genres of Community
History of Emotions
Letters
Early Modern Women’s Writing
Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama
Literature and Intellectual History
Recent Grants
2017, 2015, 2012 Associate Investigator, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions
2014 James M. Osborne Fellowship in English and History, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
2012-13 S. Ernest Sprott Fellowship, University of Melbourne
2010-13 Chief Investigator, Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP1092592), ‘Continuities and Changes in the History of European Women’s Letter Writing’ (2010-13 with Prof Barbara Caine (University of Sydney), Prof David Garrioch (Monash), Prof Bill Kent (Monash), Dr Carolyn James (Monash), Prof Constant Mews (Monash), Dr Claire Monagle (Monash), and Prof Pauline Nestor (Monash)
Research Supervision Experience
Co-supervisor of doctorate at University of Queensland
Publications
Books
Epistolary Community in Print, 1580-1664. Ashgate, 2013. ISBN 978-1-4094-4535-7
- “a valuable contribution to debates about the history of the familiar letter in England and its role in the creation of the ‘republic of letters’” (TLS, 2014). https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/private/social-medium/
- “a compelling narrative [and] a substantial contribution to conversations on early modern letters” (Prose Studies, 2014). www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01440357.2014.949031
- “fascinating study […] an exciting read” (Parergon 30.2, 2013). http://muse.jhu.edu/article/536687
- “a strong, unified, and lively narrative of responses to crises of community by epistolary readers and writers” (Renaissance Quarterly, 2013). http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/675182l
- “a welcome extension of the history of the letter” (Seventeenth-Century News, 2014). http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/151536
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
“Wifely ‘affection and disposition’: Brilliana Harley and Thomas Gataker’s A Wife in Deed (1623),” in special issue “Rhetoric, Feeling, and the Early Modern Sermon,” ed. Jennifer Clement, English Studies 98.7 (2017). [DOI:10.1080/0013838X.2017.1339988]
“Tenderness, Tittle-tattle and Truth in Mother-daughter Letters: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Mary Wortley Montagu Stuart, Countess of Bute, and Lady Louisa Stuart,” special issue Letters Between Mothers and Daughters, ed. Barbara Caine, Women’s History Review 24.4 (2015): 570-90. To be republished in Routledge Special Issues as Books Program.
“The Public Life of a Woman of Wit and Quality: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Vogue for Smallpox Inoculation,” Feminist Studies 38.2 (2012): 330-62.
“Philosophy in Familiar Epistolary Form in Margaret Cavendish’s Philosophical Letters (1664)” in special issue “Friendship in Early Modern Philosophy and Science,” ed. Richard Yeo and Vanessa Smith, Parergon, 26.2 (2009): 39-64.
“Restoration of Royalist Form in Margaret Cavendish’s Sociable Letters (1664),” Meridian: The La Trobe University English Review, 8.1 (2001): 201-14.
“‘To his Coy Mistress’: Historicising Masculine Lyricism and Femininity,” Antithesis, 7.1 (1995): 131-45.
Research Book Chapters
“Bellicose Passions in Margaret Cavendish’s Playes,” Writing War in Britain and France, 1400-1854: A History of Emotions, ed. Andrew Lynch, Katrina O’Laughlin & Stephanie Downes [Routledge in production for 2018].
“Emotional Debris in Early Modern Letters,” Feeling Things: Object and Emotions Through History, ed. Stephanie Downes & Sarah Randles. Emotions in History (Oxford University Press, 2018): 114-132. ISBN 978-0-19-880264-8
“Epistolary Fiction,” Early Modern Emotions: An Introduction, ed. Susan Broomhall (Routledge, 2017): 89-91.
“Poetry,” Early Modern Emotions: An Introduction, ed. Susan Broomhall. (Routledge, 2017): 95-98.
“Editing Early Modern Women’s Letters,” Editing Early Modern Women, ed. Sarah Ross and Paul Salzman (Cambridge University Press, 2016): 121-38.
“Remembering Civil War in Andrew Marvell’s ‘Upon Appleton House,’” Emotions and War: Medieval to Romantic Literature, ed. Andrew Lynch, Katrina O’Laughlin and Stephanie Downes (Palgrave, 2015): 185-202.
“A Subject for Love in The Merry Wives of Windsor,” Authority, Gender and Emotions in Late Medieval and Early Modern England,ed. Susan Broomhall (Palgrave, 2015): 168-86.
“Gender, Genre and Canonicity: Dorothy Osborne’s Letters to Sir William Temple,” Expanding the Canon of Early Modern Women, ed. Paul Salzman (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010): 49-65.
“The Secretary of Ladies and Conversion at the Court of Henrietta Maria,” Henrietta Maria: Piety, Politics and Patronage, ed. Erin Griffey (Ashgate, 2008): 39-56.
Memberships
Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (ANZAMEMS)
British Shakespeare Association (BSA)
International Margaret Cavendish Society
Modern Language Association (MLA)
Renaissance Society of America (RSA)
Shakespeare Association of America (SAA)
Society for the History of the Emotions (SHE)
Society for the Study of Early Modern Women (SSEMW)
