Spencer Grayson

Spencer Grayson is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Virginia, where she works at the intersection of textual and gender studies with a focus on the literatures of the English Renaissance. She has published on early modern poetry, prose, and paratexts, and her dissertation examines the gendered stakes of textual error and emendation in the works of writers such as Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney, Mary Wroth, and William Shakespeare. Before coming to UVa, she received her BA in English from Columbia University, where she was the valedictorian of Columbia College, and her MSt in English (1550-1700) from the University of Oxford, where she received the Clarendon Fellowship. She currently works as a mentor for UVa's Writing and Rhetoric Program and served as the president of the Graduate English Students Association from 2025–2026.

 

2023. MSt, English (1550–1700), Trinity College, University of Oxford. 

2022. BA, English, Columbia University in the City of New York. 

 

“Sir sayd s/he”: Trans Error and Emendation in Mary Wroth’s Urania.” Shakespeare and Textual Failure, edited by Claire M. L. Bourne. Under peer review with Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare.

 

2026. Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences Summer Research Fellowship (UVa).

2026. Dawn and Stuart Houston Prize for Most Outstanding Project, Rare Book School (UVa).

2025–26. RBS-UVA Fellowship, Rare Book School (UVa).

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). 

 

2026. “Britomart, Busirane, and ‘Faults Escaped’ in the 1590 Faerie Queene.” Presented at the 54th Annual Meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America (seminar: The Poetics of the Page) and the 2026 Queer Bibliography Conference (Athens, GA).

2025. “‘Hermaphrodite in show’: Trans Bibliography in Mary Wroth’s Urania.” Presented at the 71st Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America (session: Queering Arcadia: The Early Modern Pastoral Across Gender and Genre).

2025. “Good Boys and Their Books: The Paratexts of Queer Friendship.” Presented at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America (seminar: The Gender of Paratexts).

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 the University 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. 

 

2027. Queer Shakespeare.

2025–26. History of Literature in English I (Beowulf to late 18th century). Teaching assistant.

2026. Shakespeare: Tragedies and Romances. Teaching assistant.

2024–2025. Writing about Identities: Gender in Speculative Fiction.