Dr. Stephanie Elsky, associate professor of English at Rhodes, has been appointed as the director of the college’s Pearce Shakespeare Endowment, which enriches courses in Shakespeare and supports events for the campus and community.
Elsky’s selection was made after the endowment’s founding director, Dr. Scott Newstok, was named the inaugural executive director of the Spence Wilson Center for Interdisciplinary Humanities.
“As a leading voice among a new generation of Renaissance scholars, Stephanie is ideally suited to her new role as director of the Pearce Endowment at Rhodes. Under her leadership, the study of Shakespeare will continue to play an integral part in the intellectual life of our campus and our community,” said Dr. Timothy Huebner, provost and vice president for academic affairs.
Elsky, who joined the faculty in 2017 after receiving a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania, has frequently collaborated with Newstok on programming associated with the Pearce Endowment. Her research and teaching focuses on poetry, prose, and the drama of the English Renaissance. She is the author of Custom, Common Law, and the Constitution of English Renaissance Literature (Oxford University Press, 2020) and is co-editing The Cambridge History of the Literature of London, Volume 1. As a founding member of The Renaissance Project Collective, she has organized conferences and seminar series supported by grants from The Alliance to Advance Liberal Arts Colleges.
The Pearce Shakespeare Endowment will present two events in October: a public talk on Oct. 24 on “How Plays Teach Us to See” and for Rhodes faculty on Oct. 25, a workshop focusing on strategies for fostering meaningful critical and creative student engagement with challenging literary texts. More information can be found on the Pearce webpage.
The Pearce Shakespeare Endowment was established in 2007 by the late Dr. Iris Annette Pearce, who attended Rhodes College in the 1940s. Her lifelong enthusiasm for Shakespeare lives on through her generous bequest, which has brought to Memphis scholars, actors, musicians, and filmmakers to explore Shakespeare’s world and legacy.