Little, Arthur L.
Associate Professor
Humanities 226
Tel: 310.206.7072
Fax: 310.267.4339
Send E-mail

Education

Ph.D. Harvard University, English 1986-1989
M.A. Harvard University, English, 1983-1986
B.A. Northwestern University, English, 1979-1983

Research and teaching fields

Shakespeare; Early Modern Studies; Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, and Transgender Studies (LGBTS); Gender Studies; African American Studies; Race and Ethnic Studies.

Additional Information

I am passionately committed to both Shakespeare studies (particularly race and sexuality research) and LGTQI studies. In all instances I am most attuned to issues of subjectivity and performance. My first book studies the intersection of nationalism/imperialism, race, gender, and sexuality in a select group of Shakespeare's plays, and focuses especially on the tropic staging of the white female body. Right now, I'm working on two book-length projects—one a study of mid-twentieth century queer American drama and film and the other a Shakespeare study trained on various nineteenth and twentieth-century disciplinary cultural moments. I am also deeply invested in my students and their intellectual well-being.

Publications

BOOKS

Cultural Study of Hamlet [in progress].

Shakespeare Jungle Fever:  National-Imperial Re-Visions of Race, Rape and Sacrifice (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000). “Picturing the Hand of White Women,” pp.25-67, REPRINTED in Shakespearean Criticism, 73 (Thomson Gale, 2003), 273-285.

RESEARCH ARTICLES

“The Rites of Queer Marriage in The Merchant of Venice,” Shakesqueer, ed. Madhavi Menon (Duke University Press, forthcoming).

“Titus Andronicus.” Greenwood Shakespeare Encyclopedia, 5 Vols., ed. Patricia Parker [3,000+ words] (Greenwood Press, forthcoming).

“’A local habitation and a name’:  Presence, Witnessing, and Queer Marriage in Shakespeare’s Romantic Comedies,” Presentism, Gender, and Sexuality in Shakespeare, ed. Evelyn Gajowski (New York:  Palgrave, 2009), 207-236.

“Samuel R. Delany.” African American Writers, Vol. 1, ed. Valerie Smith (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2001), 149-165.

"Absolute Bodies, Absolute Laws:  The Politics of Punishment in Measure for Measure," Shakespearean Power and Punishment, ed. Gillian Murray Kendall (Madison, NJ:  Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London:  Associated University Presses, 1998), 113-129.

"'An essence that's not seen':  The Primal Scene of Racism in Othello," Shakespeare Quarterly, 44 (1993), 304-324.  REPRINTED in Shakespearean Criticism, 68 (New York: Thompson Gale, 2002), 167-180.

"'Transshaped' Women:  Virginity and Hysteria in The Changeling," Madness in Drama, Themes in Drama, 15, ed. James Redmond (New York and Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1993), 19-42.  REPRINTED in Literature and Criticism from 1400-1800, 123 (New York: Thompson Gale), 339-351.

OTHER ARTICLES

Book review of Empire and Nation in Early English Renaissance Literature, Stewart Mottram (Cambridge:  D.S. Brewer, 2008), Renaissance Studies [forthcoming].

Book review of Colorblind Shakespeare:  New Perspectives on Race andPerformance, ed. Ayanna Thompson (Routledge, 2006).  Shakespeare Studies 37 (2009):  296-306.

Book review of Performing Blackness on English Stages, 1500-1800, Virginia Vaughan (Cambridge University Press, 2005), Early Theatre 11 (2008): 144-149.

Book reviews of David Bergman’s The Violet Hour (Columbia, 2003) and Roderick A. Ferguson’s Aberrations in Black (Minnesota, 2004).  American Literature, 77 (2005):  648-651.

"Richard II and the Essence of Rebellion:  A Multicultural Inquiry," Performing Arts, Los Angeles edition (Mark Taper Forum), 26, no. 4, April 1992, pp. p-8-p-9.