The English Department's annual Dan S. Collins Lecture is held at the Center each year and is delivered by a leading scholar in the field of early modern literature. The lecture is named for Dan S. Collins, a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 1957 until his retirement in 1987. Collins co-founded English Literary Renaissance in 1971, a journal devoted to current criticism and scholarship of Tudor and early Stuart English literature, 1485-1665.
2024 - Adam Smyth, Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book, Balliol College, University of Oxford.
2023 - Melissa Sanchez, Donald T. Regan Professor of English & Comparative Literature, University of Pennsylvania
2022 - Frances Dolan, Distinguished Professor of English, University of California Davis
2021 - Sharon Achinstein, Sir William Osler Professor of English, John Hopkins University
2019 - Paul Yachnin, Tomlinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies, McGill University
2018 - Katherine Eggert, Professor of English, University of Colorado Boulder
2017 - Steven W. May, Professor Emeritus, Georgetown College
2016 - William West, Professor of English, Northwestern University
2015 - Laura L. Knoppers, Professor of English, the University of Notre Dame
2014 - Margaret Ezell, Distinguished Professor of English, Texas A&M University
2013 - Linda Gregerson, Caroline Walker Bynum Distinguished University Professor of English, The University of Michigan
2012 - Achsah Guibbory, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of English, Barnard College
2011 - Richard Dutton, Academy Professor Emeritus, Ohio State University
2010 - Emily Bartels, Professor of English, Rutgers
2009 - Heather Dubrow, Professor of Literature, Fordham University
2008 - Lena Cowen Orlin, Professor of English, Georgetown University
2007 - Anne Lake Prescott, Senior Scholar & Emerita Helen Goodhart Altschul Professor of English, Barnard College
2006 - Alan Dessen, Peter G. Phialas Distinguished Professor Emeritus, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2005 - Linda Woodbridge, Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies, Penn State University
2004 - Naomi Liebler, Professor of English, Montclair State University
2003 - Reid Barbour, Professor of English, the University of North Carolina at Chaple Hill
2002 - Mark Rose, Distinguished Professor Emeritus in English, The University of California, Santa Barbara
2001 - Mary Beth Rose, Professor of English, The University of Illinois at Chicago
2000 - Anthony Low, Professor Emeritus of English, New York University
1999 - Anne Lake Prescott, Senior Scholar & Emerita Helen Goodhart Altschul Professor of English, Barnard College
1998 - Margaret Hannay, Professor Emeritus of English, Siena College
1997 - Louis Montrose, Rebeca Hickel Emeritus Professor of Elizabethan Studie, UC San Diego
1996 - Jonas Barish, Professor Emeritus of English, The University of California, Berkeley
1995 - Peter Stallybrass, Annenberg Professor of Humanities & Professor of English & Comp. Lit., University of Pennsylvania
1994 - Lawrence Danson, Professor Emeritus of English, Princeton University
1993 - Louis Martz, Sterling Professor Emeritus of English, Yale University
1992 - Ronald MacDonald, Professor Emeritus of English, Oral Roberts University
1991 - Martin Butler, Professor of English Renaissance Drama, University of Leeds
1990 - Leah Marcus, Edwin Mims Professor Emerita of English, Vanderbilt University
1989 - Harry Berger, Professor Emeritus of English, University of California, Santa Cruz
1988 - Stanley Fish, Floersheimer Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law, Cardozo School of Law in New York City
1987 - Philip Finkelpearl, Anne Pierce Rogers Professor Emeritus of English, Wellesley College
1986 - Marjorie Garber, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English and of Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University
1985 - Katherine Eisaman Maus, James Branch Cabell Professor of English, University of Virginia
1983 - George K. Hunter, G.K. Hunter, the Emily Sanford Professor Emeritus of English, Yale University