College of Humanities and Social Sciences staff

Dr Bill Angus staff profile picture

Contact details +6492136341

Dr Bill Angus BA(Hons), MA, PhD

Senior Lecturer

School of Humanities Media and Creative Comm

BA (Hons) English (Tees.); MA Literary Studies: Writing, Memory, Culture, PhD Renaissance Drama (Newcastle.)

Bill taught for nine years at various UK universities, including Birmingham, Newcastle, Hull, and Buckingham before coming to Massey in 2013. He currently lectures in Shakespeare (139.211), Writing Shakespeare's England (139.306), Early Modern Drama: Form and Performance (139.728) and  Romantic Writing: Self and Nature (139.202).

He has published two monographs, Metadrama and the Informer in Shakespeare and Jonson (2016) and Intelligence and Metadrama in the Early Modern Theatre (2018), and an edited collection, Reading the Road from Shakespeare's Crossways to Bunyan's Highways (2019).

Bill's latest monograph, The Parting of the Ways: Crossroads in Early Modern Culture is forthcoming in 2021 with Edinburgh University press. This considers the crossroads as a site with transformative power, a place of spiritual binding, and a space between worlds, in early modern and other cultures, encompassing histories of wandering, place magic, judicial execution, regulation of burial, religious ritual, and liminality.

Also forthcoming this year is Poison on the Renaissance Stage, an edited collection of essays to be published by Manchester University Press.

Bill is an active Early Modern scholar with varied interests in English Literature and a long record of teaching across the full English curriculum.

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Professional

Contact details

  • Ph: 84499
    Location: 4.50, SGP
    Campus: Turitea

Qualifications

  • Bachelor of Arts (Honours) - University of Teesside (2001)
  • Master of Arts - University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (2002)
  • Doctor of Philosophy - University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (2007)

Prizes and Awards

  • Massey University Research Fund 2017 ($3,000) - MURF (2017)

Research Expertise

Research Interests

Bill's field of original research is the intersection of early modern literature and culture, where literary trends reveal historical realities. His two main research interests so far have encompassed the relationship between metadrama and the insidious figure of the informer and contemporary literary depictions of physical crossroads as places of transformation and binding.

His teaching and supervisory interests are in drama and other literatures centred around the era of the Elizabethan and Stuart monarchies, 1558-1714, and is looking forward to welcoming research proposals in these broad areas. 

Research Opportunities

  • All research  (At any time) I am interested in supervising a very broad range of literary and theoretical projects, with a preference for those centred around the Early Modern period

Area of Expertise

Field of research codes
British and Irish Literature (200503): Comparative Literature Studies (200524): Cultural Studies (200200):
History And Archaeology (210000):
Languages, Communication And Culture (200000): Literary Studies (200500): Literary Studies not elsewhere classified (200599): Literary Theory (200525): North American Literature (200506): Other European Literature (200515): Other Language, Literature and Culture (209900): Other Literatures in English (200508)

Keywords

Early Modern drama and literature.

Shakespeare

Ben Jonson

Metadrama

Crossroads

Research Projects

Summary of Research Projects

Position Current Completed
Project Leader 0 5

Research Outputs

Journal

Angus, B. (2020). Going down to the crossroads: Popular music and transformative magic. Popular Music. 39(2), 257-269
[Journal article]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, W. (2018). ‘Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle and the Menace of the Authoring Audience’. Early Modern Literary Studies. 20(1), Retrieved from https://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/journal/index.php/emls/article/view/363
[Journal article]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B. (2018). The Apotropaic “Witch posts” of Early Modern Yorkshire: A Contextualization. Material Religion. 14(1), 55-82
[Journal article]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B. (2010). 'The Roman Actor, Metadrama, Authority, and the Audience’. Studies in English Literature 1500-1900. 50(2), 445-445
[Journal article]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B. (2009). ‘A hawk from a handsaw’: A New Contextualisation’. Notes and Queries. (March 2009)
[Journal article]Authored by: Angus, W.

Book

Angus, B. (2020). ‘The Night, the Crossroads and the Stake: Shakespeare and the Outcast Dead’. In B. Angus, & L. Hopkins (Eds.) Reading the Road, from Shakespeare’s Crossways to Bunyan’s Highways. (pp. 51 - 70). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
[Chapter]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B., & Hopkins, L. (Eds.) (2020). Reading the Road, from Shakespeare’s Crossways to Bunyan’s Highways. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
[Edited Book]Contributed to by: Angus, W.Edited by: Angus, W.
Angus, B.(2018). Intelligence and Metadrama in the Early Modern Theatre. Edinburgh, United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press
[Authored Book]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B.(2016). Metadrama and the informer in Shakespeare and Jonson. UK: Edinburgh University Press
[Authored Book]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B. (2009). ‘Metadrama, Authority and the Roots of Incredulity’. In D. Jernigan (Ed.) Drama and the Postmodern: Assessing the Limits of Metatheatre. : Cambria Press
[Chapter]Authored by: Angus, W.

Conference

Angus, B.Shakespeare and the Outcast Dead. . Sheffield Hallam University
[Conference Paper]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B.Mobility and paradox: The unquiet dead. . Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne.
[Conference Paper]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B.Early modern crossroads: The travelling dead and the binding of Gods. . Wellington, New Zealand
[Conference Paper]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B.The night, the crossroads, and the stake. . London, United Kingdom
[Conference Paper]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B.Fear and roaming at Shakespeare’s edges. . Hamilton, New Zealand
[Conference Paper]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B.‘Church Magic and the Apotropaic Witch Posts of Early Modern Yorkshire.’. . Massey University
[Conference Paper]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B.Transformation, binding, and the presence at the crossroads. . Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
[Conference Paper]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B.Trivial cultures: The metamorphoses of the crossroads. . Dunedin, New Zealand
[Conference Paper]Authored by: Angus, W.

Other

Angus, WJ. (2017). Metadramatic Informers: Falstaff, Hal, Coriolanus, and the Authority of Policy.
[Internet publication]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B. (2017). Blog: ‘Shakespeare’s Metadrama and the Informer’ EUP, April 27, 2016,. Edinburgh University Press
[Other]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B. (2015). Poetry: God knows what the dead bequeath. (pp. 43 - 43). Massey University Press
[Other]Authored by: Angus, W.
Angus, B. (2014, April). Hamlet and Memory. In The Palmerston North City Library.
[Oral Presentation]Authored by: Angus, W.

Consultancy and Languages

Consultancy

  • 2010-present - Journal: Comparative Drama
    Expert external reader
  • Jan 2017-present - Cahiers Élisabéthains
    Reviewer

Teaching and Supervision

Summary of Doctoral Supervision

Position Current Completed
Co-supervisor 1 0

Current Doctoral Supervision

Co-supervisor of:

  • Tania-Maree Kelly Roxborogh - Doctor of Philosophy
    Mana Orite - ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and Mātauranga Māori - Strategies to assist English teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand decolonize the teaching of Shakespeare