Joseph Black

Joseph Black received his BA and PhD from the University of Toronto. He joined the English Department in 2004, after six years as Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. He was Editor of the Sidney Journal (2000-05), on the General Editorial Board of the Broadview Anthology of British Literature, and currently serves on the editorial board of English Literary Renaissance (co-editor, 2007-08). 

His speciality is early modern British literature, with research interests that fall under the broad rubric of book history. His recent work explores the interplay between early modern writings and the material and social contexts of their production and reception, focusing particularly on pamphlet warfare and the public sphere, oppositional communities and the social uses of texts, the complex dialogue between print and manuscript culture, and the history of private libraries. His current major project is  the Complete Works of Thomas Nashe in 6 vols., co-edited with Andrew Hadfield, Jennifer Richards, and Cathy Shrank for Oxford University Press.  

His teaching interests include seventeenth-century literature, Milton, Shakespeare, the epic tradition, and book history. 

Books:

• John Milton: Samson Agonistes and Selected Shorter Poems (Broadview, 2013)
• The Martin Marprelate Tracts (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
• The Library of the Sidneys of Penshurst Place (University of Toronto Press, 2013), with Germaine Warkentin and William Bowen
• Private Libraries of Renaissance England, vol. 7 (MRTS, 2009) and vol. 8 (MRTS, 2013), both with R. J. Fehrenbach
• The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, vol. 2: The Renaissance and Early Seventeenth Century(Broadview, 2006), with Anne Lake Prescott
• The Broadview Anthology of Seventeenth-Century English Verse and Prose (Broadview, 2000), with Alan Rudrum and Holly Nelson

Articles in Journals, such as:

• History Compass, Spenser Studies
• Sixteenth Century Journal
• Publishing History

Contributions to:

• ​Oxford Handbook of Spenser
• Oxford Handbook of English Prose, c.1500-1640
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Dictionary of Literary Biography
• Ashgate Research Companion to the Sidneys (1500-1700)

​Digital Resources:

• Private Libraries of Renaissance England (PLRE.Folger)
• The Martin Marprelate Press: A Documentary History