Hannah C. Wojciehowski
Professor — PhD, Yale University
Arthur J. Thaman and Wilhelmina Doré Thaman Professor of English

Contact
- E-mail: gemelli@austin.utexas.edu
- Phone: 471-8768
- Office: PAR 230
- Office Hours: Spring 2019: TTh 2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Interests
the history of subjectivity; group identity formation; globalization and transculturation; sixteenth-century travel literature and colonization; cognitive criticism; women writers in early modern Europe;
Biography
I am an early modernist and literary theorist who specializes in the history of subjectivity. I completed my Ph.D. at Yale University in the interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies Program (1984). I am currently the Arthur J. Thaman and Wilhelmina Doré Thaman Professor of English at the University of Texas, and an Affiliate of the Program in Comparative Literature and of the South Asia Institute.
My research interests are multiple. My 2011 book Group Identity in the Renaissance World explores the history of what I call "group subjectivity.” Drawing on the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Anzieu, and the social network theory of Georg Simmel, this book analyzes the unconscious dynamics of group identity formation in a global context, offering a new paradigm for the study of early modernity.
This study of collective fantasies as the organizing ‘containers’ of groups has applications for other historical periods, as well, including the recent past. My current research on the life and writings of Michel Foucault during the late Sixties, and on his highly influential theories of power/knowledge, brings the study of group identity from the early modern world to the post-modern.
New information about the nature of the human mind and about individual and collective identity is being generated at a rapid pace by the sciences, including cognitive and social neuroscience. A growing number of scholars in the humanities are drawing on this new research in order to rethink the theoretical models for subjectivity and intersubjectivity that held sway during the twentieith century--for example, psychoanalysis, phenomenology, structuralism and post-structuralism. The emergent field of Cognitive Cultural Studies holds great promise for advancing our shared understanding of the human mind and our social world, and the nature of creativity.
I have recently edited Shakespeare’s Cymbeline for the New Kittredge Shakespeare Series, which will be published in 2015 by Focus, an imprint of Hackett Publishing. This edition of the play includes performance notes—one of the special features of the series--and relies on film and stage productions of Cymbeline to introduce the reader to one of Shakespeare’s most engaging romances.
My other research interests include the history of gender and sexuality, early modern women’s writing, Tudor and Jacobean theater, travel narratives and sixteenth-century colonialism, the impact of science and technology on literature, and vice versa, and the history and practice of literary criticism and theory.
Awards (selected):
- University Research Institute Faculty Research Award (2014)
- University of Texas Humanities Research Award (2013-2015)
- President's Associates Teaching Excellence Award (2011)
- Faculty Fellow, Humanities Institute, University of Texas (2009)
- University Research Institute Faculty Research Award (2008)
- Raymond Dickson Centennial Endowed Teaching Fellowship (2007-2008)
- Dads Association Centennial Teaching Fellowship (2004-2005)
- Rockefeller Resident Fellowship, Institute for the Study of Violence, Survival, and Culture, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (2002)
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Huntington Library (2001)
- K. Garth Huston and Fletcher Jones Foundation Fellow, Huntington Library (2000)
- Pforzheimer Fellowship, Humanities Research Center, University of Texas (1999)
Affiliated Research/Academic Unit:
Program in Comparative Literature
Center for Women's and Gender Studies
South Asia Institute
Courses
C L 385 • Found Literary Thry/Critsm-Wb
34495 • Spring 2021
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM
Internet; Synchronous
E 379R • Binge-Watch: Cultrl Hist-Wb
36290 • Spring 2021
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM
Internet; Synchronous
IIWr
C L 390 • Contemporary Literary Thry-Wb
33485 • Fall 2020
Meets MW 2:00PM-3:30PM
Internet; Synchronous
E 336E • British Lit: Begin-Renaissance
35500 • Spring 2019
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM PAR 204
GC
E 348 • The Short Story
35555 • Spring 2019
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM PAR 204
Wr
E 379R • Binge-Watching: Cultrl Hist
35903 • Fall 2018
Meets MW 11:30AM-1:00PM PAR 312
IIWr
E 392M • Drama Of Jamestown
36000 • Fall 2018
Meets M 3:00PM-6:00PM CAL 323
E 303D • Plan II World Lit Part II
34275 • Spring 2018
Meets MW 11:30AM-1:00PM CAL 221
Wr
HU
E 350E • Drama Of Jamestown
35025 • Spring 2018
Meets MW 2:30PM-4:00PM PAR 214
Wr
(also listed as LAH 350)
E 379R • Binge-Watching: Cultrl Hist
35745 • Fall 2017
Meets MW 1:00PM-2:30PM PAR 312
IIWr
E 303D • Plan II World Lit Part II
34735 • Spring 2017
Meets MWF 11:00AM-12:00PM CAL 200
Wr
HU
E 336E • British Lit: Begin-Renaissance
35370 • Spring 2017
Meets MWF 12:00PM-1:00PM MEZ 1.216
GC
E 303C • Plan II World Lit Part I
34540 • Fall 2016
Meets MWF 11:00AM-12:00PM CRD 007B
GC
C1
E 379R • Renaissance Travel Narratives
35585 • Fall 2016
Meets MWF 2:00PM-3:00PM PAR 310
IIWr
E S314L • Banned Books And Novel Ideas
82060 • Summer 2016
Meets MTWTHF 8:30AM-10:00AM CLA 0.106
Wr
UGS 302 • Empathy, Emotion, And Story
61465 • Spring 2016
Meets MWF 10:00AM-11:00AM MAI 220B
Wr
E 603A • Composition/Reading World Lit
33790 • Fall 2015
Meets MWF 11:00AM-12:00PM CRD 007B
GC
C1
E 348 • The Short Story
34745 • Spring 2015
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM PAR 302
Wr
T C 357 • Snow Bridge: Humanities & Sci
42430 • Spring 2015
Meets TTH 9:30AM-11:00AM CAL 200
C L 381 • Imagintn, Columbus/Shakespeare
33955 • Fall 2014
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM PAR 310
(also listed as E 392M)
E 350E • Cannibal Renaissance
35830 • Fall 2014
Meets TTH 9:30AM-11:00AM CAL 221
Wr
(also listed as LAH 350)
C L 382 • How Stories Make Us Feel
34380 • Spring 2014
Meets MW 11:00AM-12:30PM CAL 323
(also listed as E 393M)
T C 357 • Snow Bridge: Humans & Neurosci
43785 • Spring 2014
Meets MW 3:00PM-4:30PM CAL 200
E 348 • 20th-Century Short Story
35475 • Spring 2013
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM PAR 103
Wr
UGS 302 • Empathy, Emotions & The Novel
64005 • Spring 2013
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM MAI 220B
Wr
E 679HA • Honors Tutorial Course
35695 • Fall 2012
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM PAR 201
E 384K • Approaches To Disciplnry Inqus
35775 • Fall 2012
Meets W 6:00PM-9:00PM SZB 422
E F314L • Banned Books And Novel Ideas
83585 • Summer 2012
Meets MTWTHF 10:00AM-11:30AM PAR 206
Wr
E 392M • Medieval-Renais Women Writers
35670 • Spring 2012
Meets MW 12:30PM-2:00PM MEZ 1.104
(also listed as MDV 392M)
E 336E • British Lit: Begin-Renaissance
35235 • Fall 2011
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM PAR 310
GC
E 379R • Renaissance Travel Narratives
35545 • Fall 2011
Meets TTH 3:30PM-5:00PM PAR 310
IIWr
E F314L • Banned Books And Novel Ideas
83525 • Summer 2011
Meets MTWTHF 8:30AM-10:00AM PAR 204
Wr
C L 382 • How Stories Make Us Feel
34025 • Spring 2011
Meets MW 11:00AM-12:30PM CBA 4.336
(also listed as E 393M)
E 379R • Dr Faustus In Thtr/Fict/Film
35820 • Spring 2011
Meets MW 3:30PM-5:00PM MEZ 1.118
IIWr
E 321K • Introduction To Criticism
34485 • Fall 2010
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM PAR 310
Wr
E F348 • 20th-Century Short Story
83080 • Summer 2010
Meets MTWTHF 8:30AM-10:00AM PAR 206
E 379S • Senior Seminar-W
35165 • Spring 2010
Meets MW 3:30PM-5:00PM MEZ 2.210
C2
E 376 • Chaucer-W
35220 • Fall 2009
Meets TTH 9:30AM-11:00AM PAR 204
C2
Publications
Edition of Shakespeare's Cymbeline. The New Kittredge Shakespeare. Series Editor James H. Lake. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing, 2014.
How Stories Make Us Feel: Toward an Embodied Narratology
Journal Issue: California Italian Studies, 2(1)
Author: Wojciehowski, Hannah, University of Texas, Austin
Gallese, Vittorio, University of Parma, Italy
Publication Date: 2011
Publication Info:
California Italian Studies, Italian Studies Multicampus Research Group, UC Office of the President
Permalink: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3jg726c2
"The Mirror Neuron Mechanism and Literary Studies: An Interview with Vittorio Gallese," California Italian Studies 2, No. 1 (2010).
Permalink: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/56f8v9bv
Keywords:
Mirror Neurons, Mirror Neuron Mechanism, neurocriticism, Vittorio Gallese, neuroscience
Group Identity in the Renaissance World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
http://www.cambridge.org/us/knowledge/isbn/item6038442/?site_locale=en_US
“Assessing Empathy: A Slumdog Questionnaire,” Image [&] Narrative 11, No. 2 (2010): 123-145.
“Triangulation in Humanist Friendship: More, Erasmus, Giles, and the Making of Utopia,” Discourses and Representations of Friendship in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700, ed. Daniel T. Lochman, Maritere Lopez, and Lorna Hutson. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate, 2011. 45-63.
“O Dente do Bugio: Relics, Religion and Rivalry in 16th-Century Ceylon and Goa.”
Santa Barbara Portuguese Studies IX (2007): 234-253.
“The Queen of Onor and Her Emissaries: Fernão Mendes Pinto’s Dialogue with India,” Emissaries in Early Modern Literature and Culture—Mediation, Tranmission, Traffic: 1550-1700, ed. Brinda S. Charry and Gitanjali Shahani. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate, 2009. 167-191.
“Literary Theory,” Encyclopedia of British Literature, ed. David Scott Kastan. 5 vols. Vol. 3. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 301-313.
“Sex, Death, and Poetry in Cinquecento Venice: Veronica Franco vs. Maffio Venier.” Italica 83, Nos. 3 and 4 (2006): 367-390.
“Francis Petrarch: First Modern Friend,” Texas Studies in Language and
Literature 47, No. 4 (Winter 2005): 269-298.
“St. Augustine.” The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Criticism and Theory. Eds. Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth. 2nd ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994, 2005. 57-58.
Birth Passages: Maternity and Nostalgia, Antiquity to Shakespeare. By Theresa M. Krier. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. Xvii+266 pp. Modern Philology 102, No. 3 (Feb. 2005): 410-413.
“Religion, Rivalry, and Relics in 16th-Century Goa: The Destruction and Return of the Dalada.” Manushi. New Delhi, India. June, 2004.
Wojciehowski.H.C. (2001) Print, Manuscript, Performance: The Changing Relations of the Media in Early Modern England. Libraries and Culture Libraries and Culture
Old Masters, New Subjects: Early Modern and Poststructuralist Theories of Will (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995).
http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=2383