Hello! My name is Penelope Geng (she/her/hers) and I am an associate professor of English at Macalester College. I specialize in early modern literature, Shakespeare, law and literature, religion, and disability. My first book Communal Justice in Shakespeare’s England: Drama, Law, and Emotion (2021) argues for the vital work of drama in preserving a culture of participatory justice, communal care, and lay magistracy at a time when the law was becoming professionalized. My next book-length project, provisionally titled Disabled by Law, traces the legacy of seventeenth-century property law on modern understanding of ableminded citizenship—and the surprising ways that ideology was (and continues to be) contested by the literary imagination.
I am the co-convener of Uncommon Bodies, a Twin Cities-based research workshop devoted to sharing knowledge about disability theory, aesthetics, and pedagogy. At Macalester, I teach courses like “Shakespeare,” “Once upon a Crime” (an introduction to law and literature), “Major British Authors,” “Disability in the English Renaissance,” and “Demonology.” St. Paul, Minnesota, USA is where I work and live. Please get in touch if you want to discuss any aspect of my research or teaching.
Email: pgeng[at]macalester.edu
Penelope Geng 