Patricia Cahill Associate Professor

Patricia A. Cahill, Associate Professor in the Department of English, specializes in Shakespeare and early modern literature, especially drama. She is the author of Unto the Breach: Martial Formations, Historical Trauma, and the Early Modern Stage (OUP, 2008). She has also published articles and book chapters on such subjects as military technology and mathematics, animal matter and affect theory, and the senses in performance.

She is currently working on two projects: a book that examines the affective dynamics of early modern stage properties, especially animal skins, and a study of Black Shakespeare and the Jim Crow South.

Professor Cahill regularly teaches undergraduate courses on Shakespeare and early modern literature, which often entail multimodal projects and are designed to hone students’ close reading and analytical writing skills. She also mentors Emory students who value community engagement, especially in Atlanta's public schools.

At the graduate level, Professor Cahill enjoys leading seminars in Shakespeare and early modern literature, helping to prepare PhD candidates for roles in the academy and elsewhere, and working with graduate students on PhD dissertations.

In recent years, she has advised dissertation writers exploring early modern literature via such allied fields as ecocriticism, disability studies, theories of embodiment and cognition, critical race studies, and the history of medicine.

• Ph.D., Columbia University
• M.Phil., Columbia University
• B.A., Wellesley College