English and Creative Writing

Matthew Kozusko

Matt Kozusko teaches primarily Shakespeare and early modern drama and is an active member of the CIE faculty. With two decades of experience performing Shakespeare in the U.S. and the U.K., his courses combine interests in performance, rhetoric, and theory, and seek to connect early modern storytelling with contemporary analogues.

He writes mostly about theater history and about the cultural function and status of Shakespeare in contemporary popular culture. Recent publications include articles in Shakespeare Survey, Early Theatre, Shakespeare BulletinBorrowers & Lenders, and several essay collections. He is co-editor of Performing Shakespearean Appropriations (2022) and Thunder at a Playhouse (2010), and editor of The Two Gentlemen of Verona (New Kittredge Shakespeare, 2014). He is editor of the book series Shakespeare and the Stage (FDUP) and former co-general editor for Borrowers & Lenders: the Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation.

He lives in Philadelphia with his family.

Department

English

Degrees

  • B.A., University of Texas
  • Ph.D., University of Georgia

Teaching

  • CIE 100 and 200
  • ENGL 104W / ENGL 320 #shxpere_remakes (Shakespeare and contemporary film & culture)
  • ENGL 220 Introduction to Shakespeare
  • ENGL 315 Epic Smackdown (Beowulf, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton)
  • ENGL 320 Renaissance Tragedy
  • ENGL 320 Shakespeare and Gender
  • ENGL 320 Shakespeare Tragedy
  • ENGL 320 Shakespeare Comedy
  • ENGL 320 Shakespeare’s War Criminals
  • ENGL 325 Gods/Rebels/Frauds
  • ENGL senior seminars: Shakespeare’s Characters;  Shakespeare’s Problem Comedies

Research Interests

  • Shakespeare
  • Early Modern drama
  • Theater history
  • Queer theory; critical theory; feminism
  • Shakespeare in performance
  • Shakespeare and appropriation

Recent Work

Books

  • Performing Shakespearean Appropriations. Co-editor. FDUP, 2022.
  • The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Editor. New Kittredge Shakespeare Series. Hackett / Focus Publishing, 2014.
  • Thunder at a Playhouse: Essaying Shakespeare on the Early Modern Stage. Co-editor. Susquehanna University Press, 2010.

Articles

  • “Why are Shakespeare’s Characters so ‘relatable’?” (reprinted) in Performing Shakespearean Appropriations, eds. Darlena Ciraulo et al. (FDUP, 2022).
  • “On Eating Paper and Drinking Ink,” in Geek Shakespeare, eds. Andrew Hartley and Peter Holland (Arden Bloomsbury, 2020), 170-186.
  • “Beyond appropriation: teaching Shakespeare with accidental
    echoes in film,” in The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Global Appropriation (Routledge, 2019), 217-226.
  • “Shakespeare and Civic Health,” in Disability, Health, and Happiness in the Shakespearean Body, ed. Sujata Iyengar (Routledge, 2015), 109-124.
  • “Why are Shakespeare’s Characters so ‘relatable’?” in The Bear Stage, eds. C. Loomis and S. Ray (FDU, 2015), 39-51.
  • “Shakesqueer, the Movie: Were the World Mine and A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Shakespeare Survey Vol. 65 (December 2012), 168-180.
  • “Introduction” to Sleep No More essay cluster, Borrowers & Lenders 7:2 (Winter 2012), n.p.
  • “Monstrous!: Actors, Audiences, Inmates, and the Politics of Reading Shakespeare,” Shakespeare Bulletin 28:2 (Summer 2010), 235-251.
  • “The Shakspere Society of Philadelphia,” Borrowers & Lenders 2:2 (Spring 2007), n.p.
  • “Taking Liberties,” Early Theatre 9:1 (Spring 2006), 37-70.