Updated: Wed, 10/02/2024 - 13:45

From Saturday, Oct. 5 through Monday, Oct. 7, the Downtown and Macdonald Campuses will be open only to McGill students, employees and essential visitors. Many classes will be held online. Remote work required where possible. See Campus Public Safety website for details.

Du samedi 5 octobre au lundi 7 octobre, le campus du centre-ville et le campus Macdonald ne seront accessibles qu’aux étudiants et aux membres du personnel de l’Université McGill, ainsi qu’aux visiteurs essentiels. De nombreux cours auront lieu en ligne. Le personnel devra travailler à distance, si possible. Voir le site Web de la Direction de la protection et de la prévention pour plus de détails.

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Wes Folkerth

Wes Folkerth
Contact Information
Phone: 
514-398-2460
Email address: 
wes.folkerth [at] mcgill.ca
Address: 

Arts 140-A
McCall MacBain Arts Building
853 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, QC H3A 0G5
Canada

Group: 
Faculty Members
Position: 
Associate Professor
Stream: 
Literature
Specialization by geographical area: 
Great Britain
Specialization by time period: 
Early Modern
16th/17th-Century
Area(s): 
Drama
Identity & Representation
Poetry & Poetics
Theatre & Performance
Areas of interest: 

Shakespeare’s fools, clowns, changelings and the cultures of early modern intellectual disability; Shakespeare’s critical, social, theatrical and cinematic history; sound in literature; early modern literature and popular culture; history and poetics of pop music; neurodiversity in literature and in the university.

Biography: 

My current research focuses on disability, especially intellectual disability, in literature, and especially in Shakespeare. California transplant. Hoosier by birth. Stories matter: you find them everywhere and they are way more powerful than you thought. Randomness: in 2016 I was session guitarist on a gospel album produced by Celine Dion’s drummer.

Degree(s): 

M.A., Ph.D. (McGill)
B.A. (Cal State University, Chico)

Current research: 

My current research combines Disability Studies and Shakespeare Studies — specifically, representations of neurodiversity and intellectual disability on the early modern stage, with a focus on natural and artificial fools, changelings, rustics and clowns, the insane, and melancholic.

Selected publications: 

Books

The Sound of Shakespeare (Routledge, 2002) — reviewed by Tanya Pollard in Shakespeare Newsletter 53 (2003-4); by Helen Moore in the TLS (15 August 2003); by Barbara Hodgdon in Studies in English Literature 43.2 (Spring 2003); by Ralph Berry in Contemporary Review 282 (2003); by Bruce R. Smith in Shakespeare Quarterly 54 (2003); by Matthew Steggle in Renaissance Forum 6.2 (2003); and by Sabine Schülting in Shakespeare Jahrbuch 140 (2004).

Edited Volumes

Co-editor with Leslie Dunn of “Shakespearean Hearing,” Special Issue of The Upstart Crow: A Shakespeare Journal. (29): 2010.

Articles and Book Chapters

"Reading Shakespeare After Neurodiversity," in Performing Disability in Early Modern England, ed. Leslie Dunn. Palgrave/MacMillan, 2020: 141-57.

“Shakespeare and Audio Recording.” The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare. Vol. 2 – The World’s Shakespeare, 1660-Present. Ed. Bruce R. Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2016. 1926-30.

“Goodfellows: Hockey, Shakespeare, and Indigenous Spirits in Tomson Highway’s Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing.” In Canadian Shakespeare, ed. Susan Knutson. Toronto: Playwright’s Canada Press, 2010. 199-206.

“Pietro Aretino, Thomas Nashe, and Early Modern Rhetorics of Public Address,” in Making Publics in Early Modern Europe: People Things, Forms of Knowledge, eds Bronwen Wilson and Paul Yachnin. New York: Routledge, 2009. 68-80.

“Shakespeare in Popular Music.” Section of multivolume work Shakespeares After Shakespeare: An Encyclopedia of the Bard in Mass Media and Popular Culture. Gen. Ed. Richard Burt. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2006. 366-407.

“Tempaurality in Twelfth Night.” In Aural Cultures, editor Jim Drobnick. YYZ Books, 2004. 120-26.

“The Metamorphosis of Daphnis: The Case for Richard Barnfield’s ‘Orpheus.’” In The Affectionate Shepherd: Celebrating Richard Barnfield. Eds. George Klawitter and Ken Borris. Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania: Susquehanna UP, 2001. 305–31.

“Roll Over Shakespeare: Bardolatry Meets Beatlemania in the Spring of 1964.” Journal of Popular Culture 23.4 (winter) 2000: 75-80.

Reviews and Public Scholarship

Awards, honours, and fellowships: 

  • Louis Dudek Award for Teaching Excellence, McGill Department of English, 2003

  • Prix d’Excellence de l’Académie des Grands Montréalais, 2000

Graduate supervision: 

Shakespeare Studies, Early Modern Literature (drama, poetry, prose writing). Close readers and unconventional thinkers of all kinds most welcome.

Taught previously at: 

It was a long time ago.

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