Olivia Langford

• MA Shakespeare Studies (Distinction), University of Birmingham
• BA English (First), University of Birmingham

I am a Shakespeare Studies PhD student at The Shakespeare Institute, funded by Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership. I previously graduated with a BA in English and an MA in Shakespeare Studies, also from the University of Birmingham. My thesis considers the perception of non-English maternity by European travellers and Shakespeare's dramatic representation of these mothers onstage.

• Postgraduate Teaching Assistant - Spring Into Shakespeare, 11 April-20 May 2022
• PG Demonstrator - Shakespeare and Early Modern Playhouse Culture, September 2022 - January 2023

My research will address how emerging early modern ideologies of foreign people, land and cultures and the maternal body intersect, exploring how social and bodily differences align through representations of non-English motherhood. My work will aim to bring together the distinct fields of maternity and colonialism studies, producing new ways of thinking in regard to perceptions of femininity and identity. This project will investigate the significance of these beliefs for Shakespeare’s dramatic works and his presentation of foreign mothers.

Papers:

• ‘This foul deed shall smell above the earth’: the multi-sensory experience of stage blood in early modern performance' - Paper given at the All The World's a Stage Conference (online)
• ‘Crack nature’s molds, all germens spill at once’: The Influence of the Male Midwife and Caesarean Sections in King Lear and Othello - Paper given at The Hidden Conference (online)
• “Crack nature’s mould”: Caesarean Imagery in Shakespeare’s King Lear and Othello - Paper given at Britgrad 2021 (online)
• 'Diseased Wombs, Cannibals and Pain-Free Childbirth: Early modern travel, medicine and the construction of the Non-European Mother' - Paper given at The Pre-Modern Mothers and Fathers Conference (in person, University of Cambridge)

• 'Like Mother , Like Monster: Exploring Titus Andronicus and Early Modern Perceptions of Non-English Maternity' - Paper given at the Examining the Early Modern Conference 2022 (in person, University of Leeds) 

Member of the Perceptions of Pregnancy network.