Research Assistant(s) for Beshrew Me! - an experimental digital edition of The Taming of the Shrew

Opportunity Description:

Beshrew Me! is an experimental digital edition of The Taming of the Shrew—specifically, of the two versions of that play (Anonymous, 1594 and Shakespeare, 1623) whose relation scholars and editors have never been able to solve. The project seeks to de-center the author function to focus instead on common culture expressions of domestic subordination and supremacy from which shrew-taming dramaturgy derives. Beshrew Me! nests the texts of both plays within the profusion of proverbs, gestures, and household artefacts (i.e. dressers, rings, trenchers, warming pans) that inculcate, sustain and sometimes critique the domestic hierarchy. 

We seek two undergraduate researchers to gather content for our edition and to help envision and devise the ways that users will interact with that content.

Primary Responsibilities: 

Common Object Researcher: This researcher will search for, transcribe, catalogue and collect high-resolution images of inscribed objects from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that pertain to early modern English domestic life. Because the artifacts of material culture are not tagged for textual content, the process of locating objects requires initiative and stamina. The researcher will be responsible for discovering, searching, and culling high-resolution images of items from a broad array of online collections held at museums and history or heritage centers, and for reaching out to curators at repositories that are not digitized to ascertain their holdings and hunt for leads. The researcher will be assembling the first digital corpus of the non-paper-based textual record of early modern England, and will help shape the presentation and accessibility of writing outside the (largely) elite medium of the manuscript or the printed book. Students likely to gain the most from this experience will have an interest in the history of common culture, material culture, domestic culture, gender relations, service and labor, social performance, and media archaeology. Knowledge of early modern drama and literature is a plus, but more important than prior acquaintance is strong curiosity and an eagerness to learn. Students will be trained to work in the OCHRE database. The ideal candidate would possess the following skills:

• Familiarity with Excel and Pinterest (in order to share images and objects with the rest of the team), 
• Meticulous record-keeping, to keep track of the cataloguing information, location, and copyright status of objects and images at the time of discovery. 
• Investment and involvement in conceptualizing the integration of common objects in a web-based textual edition, and in devising the best user interface(s) required for accessing and interacting with those objects.

Common Parlance Researcher: This researcher will be searching for and transcribing expressions of the proverbs, jokes, common sense, and wise sayings of early modern England that are cited or invoked by our key texts, the anonymous The Taming of A Shrew (first published in 1594) and Shakespeare’s The Taming of The Shrew (first published in 1623). Since these are everyday sayings rather than quotations of famous figures, and therefore they are disseminated via paraphrase rather than via reproduction, the process of discovering and tracking them is usually challenging (but also unusually rewarding). The researcher will consult prior editions of the plays as well as the major compendia of early modern proverbs (Dent, Tilley, The Brewer’s Dictionary) to take advantage of the work of prior scholarship. They will also delve deeply into early modern digital corpora, including Early English Books Online (EEBO), Early Print, English Broadsides and Ballads Archive (EBBA), and Lexicons of Early Modern English (LEME), to trace the iterations of shrew culture across a broad swath of print. The students likely to find this position especially rewarding will have a strong interest in Anglophone popular culture across the long durée (1200-present), and all its racy, vulgar, violent, and satirical expressions, particularly as it pertains to the battle of the sexes and patriarchal supremacy. Students will be trained to work in the OCHRE database. The ideal candidate would possess the following skills:

• Experience in close reading and distant reading (skimming a lot of texts and noticing common patterns and tropes)
• Familiarity with digital and analog textual databases and the patience for advanced searching within them. 

• Familiarity with Excel. 
• Meticulous record-keeping, to keep track of the location and identification of all textual hits. 
• Investment and involvement in the curation of common parlance in a digital remediation of a canonical dramatic text. 

Beshrew Me! is one of several streams of the CEDAR Project (Critical Editions for Digital Analysis and Research), a consortium of U of C-led digital editions of renowned and bibliographically complex texts that are based in the OCHRE database platform. CEDAR is supported by the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society through the academic year of 2021-2022. With Neubauer support, Beshrew Me! may organize guest lectures, workshops or symposia to support the advancement of the CEDAR Project, which student researchers will be asked to help devise and to attend. 

Minimum Qualifications and/or Eligibility Requirements: 

See above descriptions.

Application Process: 

To apply for this opportunity, please submit in *one* pdf document, the following materials: 

• Current CV with the names and contact details of two references at the end;
• 350 word statement of interest in the opportunity (not a cover letter but articulation of your interest in and preparation for the research position); please indicate which opportunity you are applying for; and,
• Unofficial transcript

Email your complete application to ccrf-research@uchicago.edu. Please do not email your materials directly to the named faculty member. Your materials will be reviewed following submission and you may be invited to interview. 

Application Requirements: