Dr. Sean McEvoy
Biography
I am a Bye Fellow at Murray Edwards, where I teach early modern drama and tragedy. I was an undergraduate at Christ's, did my MA at Sussex and my PhD at Royal Holloway. For very many years I taught sixth-form English, Classical Civilisation and Theatre Studies in Brighton. I'm a Fellow of the English Association.
Research Interests
- Early modern drama, with a particular interest in theatricality
- Contemporary mainstream British and Irish theatre
- History and theory of tragedy
- Materialist criticism
Areas of Graduate Supervision
None at present.
Connect with Sean
Publications
Books
Shakespeare: the Basics (London: Routledge, 2000; second edition, 2006; third edition 2012; fourth edition 2024); Korean edition (Seoul: Jageunsaram, 2015); Spanish edition (Mexico City: Editorial Trillas, 2015)
William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 2005)
Ben Jonson: Renaissance Dramatist (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008)
Tragedy: A Student Handbook (London: English and Media Centre 2009)
Theatrical Unrest: ten riots in the history of the stage, 1601-2004. (London: Routledge, 2016). Shortlisted for the Theatre Book Prize 2017.
Tragedy: the Basics (London: Routledge, 2017)
Class, Culture and Tragedy in the Plays of Jez Butterworth (London: Palgrave 2021)
Living Literature: Sharing Meaning and Experience in the A Level Classroom, edited by Richard Jacobs, Sean McEvoy & Martin Nichols (London: Routledge, 2026)
Reading William Shakespeare (New York: Routledge 2027)
Articles and Chapters
‘The Politics of Teaching Shakespeare’, English in Education (25), Autumn 1991
‘Shakespeare Teaching at 16-19’ in Shakespeare in Education, ed. Martin Blocksidge (London and New York: Continuum, 2003)
‘Hieronimo’s Old Cloak: Theatricality and Representation in Ben Jonson’s Middle Comedies’, The Ben Jonson Journal (11) 2004
‘A Level English Literature at Varndean College’, The Use of English (55/3), 2004
‘Ben Jonson’ for the Cambridge World Shakespeare Encyclopedia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)
‘No Craft More Privileged’, in Mike Hayler and Jess Moriarty (eds), Self-Narrative and Pedagogy (Sense: Rotterdam, 2017)
‘The Ethics of Teaching Tragic Narratives’ in Richard Jacobs (ed.), Teaching Narrative (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2018)
'Shakespeare's Radical Presence: Current Theorizing of the Plays as Expressive of Social Justice', in Pamela Bickley and Jenny Stevens (eds) Shakespeare, Education and Pedagogy (London: Routledge, 2023).