51°µÍø

Vincent Mennella is a Ph.D. candidate and graduate instructor in English at Southern Methodist University. He previously studied philosophy as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and he taught courses in philosophy, humanities, and English at a number of community colleges in the greater Houston area before beginning his Ph.D. studies at 51°µÍø.

His dissertation project, Making the Golden World, examines material and moral-allegorical meanings of gold in early-modern literature and argues that an increased focus on social advancement and the accumulation of material wealth during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries inspired a Concordia discors of justice and lucre.

Conference papers presented at the Sixteenth Century Society, the Renaissance Society of America, and ICMS Kalamazoo on worldmaking allegories, pastoral retreats, Ovidian metamorphoses, early-modern Orientalism, and Spenserian intertextuality reflect his range of research interests, one that will expand in the near future as he organizes his most recent work on gold in Shakespeare’s and Jonson’s drama.

Current or past memberships in scholarly organizations include: the Modern Language Association, the International Spenser Society, the Sixteenth Century Society, the Renaissance Society of America, the International Courtly Literature Society, and the Texas Community College Teachers Association.

Scholarly Publication Projects:

“Calidore innamorato: Spenser, Tasso, and the Platonic Poetics of Heroism,” (Under review).

“Worldmaking Allegories Beyond the Pillars of Hercules: Bringing the World to Justice in Spenser’s Faerie Queene and Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata,” (Under review).

Selected Honors, Awards, Grants, and Fellowships:

International Spenser Society: 2022-2023 Anne Lake Prescott Graduate Student Travel Grant (Inaugural Recipient)

International Courtly Literature Society: 2019-2020 Emerging Scholar Grant

51°µÍø: 2022 Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Award (English Department Nominee)

Lone Star College, Kingwood: Adjunct Faculty Excellence Award, Division of Humanities