John S. Garrison is an American author and scholar of

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

and Renaissance literature. In 2021, he was named a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for his scholarship on English literature.

Early life and education

Garrison was born in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

. He is the son of civil engineer William Louis Garrison. Garrison earned a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

in English literature from University of California, Berkeley in 1993 and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

from

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

in 2007. Prior to obtaining his graduate degree in English literature, Garrison worked for organizations in both the private and public sectors, including the Levi Strauss Foundation.

Career

Garrison's writing centers on themes of identity, language, and memory. His book ''Glass'' was one of the first books in the Object Lessons series and explores how the material—from mirrors to the telescope to the camera lens—has shaped how humans relate to themselves and to others. His thinking on the cultural history of this material has also been featured in

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

and on the Colin McEnroe Show, an NPR podcast hosted by

Colin McEnroe Colin McEnroe (born 1954) is an American columnist and radio personality. He hosts ''The Colin McEnroe Show'' on Connecticut Public Radio, writes a weekly column that runs in eight Hearst Communications, and writes a newsletter also for Hearst. B ...

. In ''Shakespeare and the Afterlife'', he explores how human fantasies about what comes after death ultimately reflect anxieties and desires of people in the present moment. ''Shakespeare at Peace'', co-written with Kyle Pivetti, contemplates how possibilities for sustainable peace might be traced to ideas in Renaissance literature. With Pivetti, he is co-editor of the scholarly book series Spotlight on Shakespeare. In ''The Pleasures of Memory in Shakespeare's Sonnets'' (2023), Garrison explores how the poems showcase the intertwined nature of desire and recollection. Beyond his non-fiction writing, Garrison also publishes creative work, and in 2004 he was a finalist for the James White Award for short fiction. In addition to being named a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the a ...

, he has received two fellowships from the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

. On January 27 2023, Bloomsbury Press announced that Garrison would be writing a volume for the next round of books in their (Thirty-Three and a Third) book series. The book will discuss Red Hot + Blue, a 1990 compilation album from the Red Hot Organization featuring tributes to Cole Porter to raise awareness about the AIDS epidemic.

Bibliography

*''Friendship and Queer Theory in the Renaissance.''

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...

, 2013. *''Glass''. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015. *''Sexuality and Memory in Early Modern England: Literature and the Erotics of Recollection''. With Kyle Pivetti.

, 2015. *''Shakespeare at Peace''. With Kyle Pivetti.

, 2018. *''Shakespeare and the Afterlife''

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2018. *''Making Milton: Print, Authorship, Afterlives.'' With Emma Depledge and Marissa Nicosia.

, 2021. *''Ovid and Masculinity in English Renaissance Literature.'' With Goran Stanivukovic.

McGill–Queen's University Press The McGill–Queen's University Press (MQUP) is a joint venture between McGill University in Montreal, Quebec and Queen's University at Kingston in Kingston, Ontario. McGill–Queen's University Press publishes original peer-reviewed works in m ...

, 2021. *''Performing Gods in Classical Antiquity and the Age of Shakespeare.'' With Dustin Dixon. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021. *''The Pleasures of Memory in Shakespeare's Sonnets.''

, 2023.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Garrison, John Living people American academics of English literature Grinnell College faculty Shakespearean scholars Year of birth missing (living people) University of California, Davis alumni