Roberta Kwan

Roberta researches in early modern English literature, especially Shakespeare, with a focus on the intersections between literature, theology, philosophy and theatre. She is also interested in the philosophy of literary education.

She is the author of Shakespeare, the Reformation and the Interpreting Self (2023, Edinburgh UP). The book was shortlisted for the 2023 Australian University Heads of English Prize for Literary Scholarship, and is on the longlist for the 2024 REFORC Book Award. 

Shakespeare, the Reformation and the Interpreting Self is part of the Edinburgh Critical Studies in Shakespeare and Philosophy series. The book examines Shakespeare’s compelling dramatisations of the interpreting self through the lens of a hermeneutical tradition that spans culture-shaping early modern religious beliefs about human knowing and pivotal philosophical ideas of our age. Shakespeare, the Reformation and the Interpreting Self offers fresh perspectives on critical questions about people’s finitude, agency, motivations, self-knowledge and ethical relation to one another - questions that were of great relevance in Shakespeare’s England and which continue to frame present-day dilemmas and debates about human experience and human being.

Roberta’s current research is on the topic of ‘Shakespeare and neighbourliness’. She has taught widely within the disciplines of English and Writing Studies.