Professor M.A Katritzky

Professional biography

At The Open University, which I joined in 2001, I am Professor of Theatre Studies in the Department of English and Creative Writing and Founding Director of GOTH (The OU Centre for Research into Gender and Otherness in the Humanities). A graduate of UCL, I gained my DPhil in 1995 from St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, where I also served as Research Associate and Graduate Advisor from 2001 to 2005. During the 1990s, I held Alexander von Humboldt, Herzog August Library and Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study Fellowships and was Senior Research Fellow at Wimbledon School of Art for four years. 

Research interests

My research focuses on early modern English, comparative and transnational literature, drama and performance culture. I serve on the University Research Committee, FASS Academic Committee Research and ECW Research Steering Group, direct GOTH (Gender and Otherness in the Humanities) and contribute to further FASS Research Groups, including HOBAR (Book History) and MEM (Medieval and Early Modern). Research outputs funded by the Herzog August Library, AHRC, Wellcome Trust and British Academy include my monographs: Healing, performance and ceremony in the writings of three early modern physicians (2012); Women, Medicine and Theatre, 1500-1750  (2007) and The art of commedia  (2006). I am editor (with Pavel Drábek) of the third collection of essays by the Theater Without Borders international group for research on transnational early modern drama (Transnational Connections in Early Modern Theatre. 2020) and series editor (with the late Jim Davis) of the Ashgate Performance Practice Reprint Series (2014).

My REF2029 publications include:

BOOK ILLUSTRATION:

• 2023: “Don Quixote in 18th Century British Book Culture: Tobias Smollett and Francis Hayman” (Tobias Smollett After 300 Years)
• 2021: “William Hogarth and Book Illustration: Visualizing “Otherness”, in pre-Victorian images of Shakespeare’s Caliban”, (Shakespearean Characters Transposed)
• 2021: “William Hogarth (1697–1764) and book illustration I: Hudibras, Quixote and the Littlecote House murals” (Theatralia)

NON-NORMATIVELY BODIED PERFORMERS:

• 2024: ‘Shackshoone: the disabled non-European performative body in 17th-century London' (Der Körper in der Frühen Neuzeit)
• 2021: “Generisches und spezifisches Anderssein: Shackshoone (1665–1680), Antonio Martinelli (1718–1740) und frühneuzeitliche Darstellungen von menschlichen Doppelfehlbildungen” (Körper-Bilder in der Frühen Neuzeit)

ENGLISH PLAYERS IN SHAKESPEAREAN EUROPE:

• 2023: The 'English Comedy' in Early Modern Europe: Migration, Emigration, Integration (Palgrave Handbook of Theatre & Migration)
• 2023: ‘Aktorzy angielscy w Rzeczypospolitej w 1. połowie XVII w’ (co-authored with Pavel Drábek) (Triumfalna Harmonia)

MEDIEVAL PERFORMANCE; COURT FESTIVAL:

• 2024: "The Merchant Scene of Biblical Drama: Rehabilitating the Female Input" (Journal of the Bible and its Reception)
• 2021: “Unreliable Memories: Documenting the Scenography of the 1589 Florentine intermedi” (European Medieval Drama)

I peer review for publishers, journals and research funding bodies in the UK, Europe, US and Canada, and serve on the editorial board of the book series L’immaginario teatrale, the Executive Committee of the Alexander von Humboldt Association UK, the Steering Committee of Theater Without Borders and the Committee of TOIA (The Oxford Italian Association). I have presented 200+ keynotes, invited lectures and conference talks and held Visiting Professorships at the University of Trier and Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.

Teaching interests

My teaching and supervisory interests focus on early modern English and comparative literature, drama and performance culture.

OU courses to which I have contributed include A815, A334, A233 and AA305. I co-authored the teaching text book Picturing Performance: The Iconography of the Performing Arts in Concept and Practice (1999), contributed a chapter to The Handbook to Literary Research (Delia Da Sousa Correa and W R Owens, eds, 2010). GOTH plans all its events to be inclusive of postgraduates and hosts a monthly online meeting run by and for our doctoral students. I welcome enquiries on postgraduate study in my specialist research areas (m.a.katritzky@open.ac.uk).