Spencer Grayson
Bio
I am a second-year PhD student in the English department with research interests in early modern English literature, queer and trans bibliography, and seventeenth-century geopolitics. Currently, I am working on projects on trans pronouns in early modern prose fiction; queer reading networks in the 16th–18th centuries; and the papers of early Virginia colonist Sir Robert Rich. Before coming to UVa, I received my BA in English from Columbia University in the City of New York, where I was the valedictorian of Columbia College, and my MSt in English (1550–1700) from the University of Oxford.
Education
2023. MSt, English (1550–1700), Trinity College, University of Oxford.
2022. BA, English, Columbia University in the City of New York.
Articles
2024. “Dolimandro’s ‘Turkish Knife’: Geopolitics and Narrative Style in Mary Wroth’s Urania.” The Review of English Studies, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgae035
Honors and Awards
2024. Thomas J. Griffis Prize for best essay by a first-year graduate student (Department of English, UVa).
2024. Battestin Fellowship (Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia).
2023. Marilyn Butler Prize for best MSt dissertation in English (University of Oxford).
2022–2023. Clarendon Fellowship in conjunction with Trinity Wordsworth Scholarship (Trinity College, University of Oxford).
2022. Columbia College Valedictorian; Junior Phi Beta Kappa; summa cum laude (Columbia University).
2022. Charles Paterno Barratt-Brown Prize for best essay in any critical field (Department of English, Columbia University).
2021. John Vincent Hickey Prize for best essay in the fields of English, Irish, or American poetry (Department of English, Columbia University).
Selected Talks
2024. “Reading Annotations for Queer Intimacy in the 16th and 18th Centuries.” Presented at the Graduate Student Forum during the Annual Meeting of the Bibliographical Society of Virginia.
2023. “‘Thus I compose my thoughts grown insolent’: Katherine Philips, Colonial Ireland, and the Poetics of (Un)Certainty.” Presented at Doubt: Oxford English Graduate Conference 2023.