Department of English

Joan Holmer is Professor of English. Her research and teaching interests are Renaissance literature; Shakespeare; Spenser; Marlowe; Nashe; Milton; source study; fairy mythology; dream lore; usury; biblical allusion; dueling; honor codes; gender roles; moral philosophy; performance phenomenology; dramatic structure and genre; intellectual, cultural, and religious history.

She earned her Ph.D. (1973) and M.A. (1971) from Princeton University, B.A. (1968) from the University of Minnesota and B.S. (1968) from the University of Minnesota.

Publications Holmer has written include: "The Merchant of Venice": Choice, Hazard and Consequence (MacMillan Press Ltd. & St. Martin's Press, 1995). Articles on Shakespeare, focusing particularly on Romeo and Juliet, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet and considering Shakespeare in relation to Thomas Nashe, Christopher Marlow, Edmund Spenser, and Erasmus; published essays on pedagogical issues, William Browne, Robert Herrick, and John Milton.