{"id":306,"date":"2009-06-30T09:25:58","date_gmt":"2009-06-30T13:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/?page_id=306"},"modified":"2025-11-07T15:10:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T20:10:20","slug":"williams-grant","status":"publish","type":"cu_people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/people\/williams-grant\/","title":{"rendered":"Grant Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"mb-6 cu-pageheader cu-component-updated md:mb-12\">\n    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 pb-5 after:w-10 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px\">\n                    \n             \n                \n            <\/h1>\n\n    \n    <\/header>\n\n\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"research-interests\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Research Interests<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Early Modern Rhetoric, Literature, and Psychology\/Cognition<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Memory Arts and Book History<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fantasy, Imagination, and Interiority<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Love Arts and Blazons<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Death Arts and Commemoration<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"current-research\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Current Research<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I am working on three projects:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>1. Renaissance Blazons and Male Fantasy: this project examines the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century blazon&#8211;the poetic catalogue that praises the beauty of the beloved&#8217;s body parts, enhancing their value and desirability by comparing them to precious objects. By conveying and disrupting male and female fantasies, blazons raise ethical perspectives on gender, the imagination, and interiority in early modern English culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2. Renaissance Love Arts: this collaborative project studies the love arts after the same manner that my colleagues Bill Engel and Rory Loughnane and I treated the cultural formations of memory and of death in our critical anthologies <em>The Memory Arts in Renaissance England <\/em>(Cambridge, 2016) and <em>The Death Arts in Renaissance England<\/em> (Cambridge, 2022). How was Renaissance love, not just a natural phenomenon, taught and learned through art, artifice, and artifact?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery aligncenter has-nested-images columns-3 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"427\" height=\"648\" data-id=\"27657\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/06\/Williams-The-Death-Arts-in-Renaissance-England.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-27657\" style=\"width:157px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/06\/Williams-The-Death-Arts-in-Renaissance-England.jpg 427w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/06\/Williams-The-Death-Arts-in-Renaissance-England-320x486.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 427px) 100vw, 427px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"441\" height=\"648\" data-id=\"27669\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/06\/Williams-Memory-and-Mortality.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-27669\" style=\"width:164px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/06\/Williams-Memory-and-Mortality.jpg 441w, https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/06\/Williams-Memory-and-Mortality-320x470.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 441px) 100vw, 441px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"180\" height=\"272\" data-id=\"27656\" src=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/147\/2009\/06\/Williams-The-Memory-Arts-in-Renaissance-England.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-27656\" style=\"width:160px;height:auto\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>3. Exempla, Commemoration, and Ethics: this project studies the Renaissance exemplum&#8211;the rhetorical device that uses a short narrative to demonstrate a moral principle. Exempla shaped early modern books in order to transmit humanist fame, commemorate past figures, and cultivate virtue ethics in their readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"recent-books\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Recent Books<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/book\/10.1007\/978-3-031-55064-5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Historicizing the Embodied Imagination in Early Modern English Literature<\/a><\/em>. Coedited with Mark Kaethler. Palgrave Macmillan: 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/books\/memory-and-mortality-in-renaissance-england\/1BB943232D58626A1B270D11216DC4B0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Memory and Mortality in Renaissance England<\/a><\/em>. Coedited with William E. Engel and Rory Loughnane. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/book\/10.1007\/978-3-030-88490-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Shakespearean Death Arts: Hamlet among the Tombs<\/a>. <\/em>Coedited with William E. Engel. Palgrave Shakespeare Series. Palgrave Macmillan: 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/books\/death-arts-in-renaissance-england\/00DF5E283163B52457B78A9A23CF7613\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Death Arts in Renaissance England: A Critical Anthology<\/a><\/em>. Coedited with William E. Engel and Rory Loughnane. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.crrs.ca\/products\/ts07\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Henry Chettle,&nbsp;<em>Kind-Heart\u2019s Dream<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Piers Plainness: Two Pamphlets from the Elizabethan Book Trade<\/em><\/a>. Coedited with Donald Beecher. Toronto: Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"recent-essays\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Recent Essays<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.connotations.de\/article\/approaching-canonicity-through-a-digital-inventory-of-exempla-a-response-to-william-e-engel\/\">Approaching Canonicity through a Digital Inventory of Exempla: A Response to William E. Engel.<\/a>\u201d <em>Connotations<\/em>&nbsp;34 (2025): 275-288.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Revision of Heraldry in <em>Astrophil and Stella<\/em>: Blazoning Native Nobility through the Impresa.\u201d <em>Sidney Journal<\/em> 42.2 (2024): 19-44.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/11C-PGly3HL73Mf77oQInH2niWFDFRnSv\/view\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Macrocosmic Proportionality and Commemorative Design in Shakespeare\u2019s <em>Sonnets<\/em>.<\/a>\u201d <em>South Atlantic Review<\/em> 89.2 Special Issue: Esoteric Design in Premodern Texts (2024): 96-115.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/pulterproject.northwestern.edu\/poems\/ee\/vain-herostratus-emblem-28\/#pulters-splendent-fame\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pulter\u2019s Splendent Fame.<\/a>\u201d <em>The Pulter Project<\/em>. Web Edition of Pulter\u2019s Poems. April 24. &nbsp;2024. Peer Reviewed Curation. .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/chapter\/10.1007\/978-3-031-55064-5_9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Feudal Art of Memory and the Treacherous Imagination: Coveting the Golden Phantasm in Mammon\u2019s House of Trade.<\/a>\u201d <em>Historicizing the Embodied Imagination in Early Modern English Literature<\/em>. Ed. by Mark Kaethler and Grant Williams. Palgrave Macmillan: 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/book\/10.1007\/978-3-031-55064-5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Introduction.<\/a>\u201d Cowritten with Mark Kaethler. <em>Historicizing the Embodied Imagination in Early Modern English Literature<\/em>. Ed. by Mark Kaethler and Grant Williams. Palgrave Macmillan: 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/books\/memory-and-affect-in-shakespeares-england\/6FC92FB8C6BDF55F3538787CBDDFFA31#fndtn-contents\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Lustful Oblivion of Widowhood in <em>The Insatiate Countess<\/em>.<\/a>\u201d <em>Memory and Affect in Shakespeare\u2019s England<\/em>. Ed. by Jonathan Baldo and Isabel Karremann. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2023. pp. 68-86.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"recent-presentations\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Recent Presentations<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFrom Blazons to Exempla: The Economy of Humanist Fame in Lanyer&#8217;s <em>Salve Deus<\/em>.\u201d Renaissance Love Arts and Monumentalizing the Beloved in the Sidney Circle. International Sidney Society. Sixteenth Century Society. Portland, OR. 31 October 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Time of the Blazon in <em>Love\u2019s Labour\u2019s Lost<\/em>&nbsp;and <em>Merchant of Venice<\/em>.\u201d Lyric Shakespeare. European Shakespeare Research Association. Shakespeare and Time: the retrieved pasts, the envisaged futures. Porto, Portugal. 11 July 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Virtue of Remembering: Herostratus, Bookish Fame, and Early Modern Cancel Culture.\u201d Early Modern Virtue Ethics and Literature. The Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies. Toronto, ON. 1 June 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Cognitive Work of the Rhetorical Conceit within Sidney&#8217;s and Puttenham&#8217;s Poetics.\u201d International Sidney Society Session III: Imagination in Philip Sidney, George Puttenham, and Fulke Greville. Sixteenth Century Society Conference. Toronto ON. 1 November, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cImage, Imagination, and Lovesickness in Burton\u2019s <em>Anatomy of Melancholy<\/em>.\u201d Materializing Image and Imagination in Seventeenth-Century Literature. Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies. Montreal, QC. 15 June, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDispelling Imaginative Fascination in Robert Burton&#8217;s Blazons.\u201d Embodied Imagination in Tudor-Stuart England. Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society. Renaissance Society of America Conference. Chicago IL.&nbsp; March 22, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSidney\u2019s Reinvention of the Heraldic Imagination.\u201d Sidney and Imagination: Heraldic, Visual, and Embodied. The Sixteenth Century Society Annual Conference. Baltimore MD. 27 October, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Shakespearean Death Arts: Hamlet among the Tombs.\u201d Remembering Death in Early Modern England. Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society. Renaissance Society of America Conference. Puerto Rico. 11 March, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"recent-graduate-courses-taught\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Recent Graduate Courses Taught <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>2025-\u2014 ENGL 6004: Approaches to the Production of Literature (Topic: The Renaissance Love Arts and Blazons)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2022\u2014ENGL 6003: Theories and Foundations (Topic: Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnets)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2022\u2014ENGL 5303\/4301: Studies in Early Modern Literature I (Topic: Shakespeare\u2019s Sonnets: Image, Memory, and Fantasy)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2021\u2014ENGL 6003: Theories and Foundations in the Production of Literature (Topic: Authorship)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2021\u2014ENGL 6004: Approaches to the Production of Literature (Topic: Authorship)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10813,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cu_people_first_name":"Grant","cu_people_last_name":"Williams","cu_people_initials":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_people_type":[22],"cu_people_expertise":[],"class_list":["post-306","cu_people","type-cu_people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_people_type-professors"],"acf":{"cu_people_job_title":"Associate Professor","cu_people_degree":"B.A., M.A. (McMaster University), Ph.D. (University of Western Ontario)","cu_building":"","cu_people_office_num":"","cu_people_pronoun":"","cu_people_designation":"","cu_people_email":"grant_williams@carleton.ca","cu_people_phone":"","cu_people_phone_ext":"","cu_people_linkedin":"","cu_people_bluesky":"","cu_people_twitter":"","cu_people_instagram":"","cu_people_facebook":"","cu_people_website":"","cu_people_orcid":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_people"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27673,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/306\/revisions\/27673"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_people_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_type?post=306"},{"taxonomy":"cu_people_expertise","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_expertise?post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}