Dr Kim Gilchrist

(he/him)

Publication

• Date
• Type

Research

My research consistently focuses on uncovering the cultural uses and reception of early-modern drama across diverse and under-considered textual communities. My first article on Mucedorus asserted the commercial relationship between this popular play and its elite source, Philip Sidney's Arcadia, and the ways in which these texts' cultural uses both challenged and echoed one another.

My monograph, Staging Britain's Past: Pre-Roman Britain in Early Modern Drama (Arden Shakespeare Studies, 2021), explores the performance of ancient British history and the ways in which its reception was shaped by the differences between popular and elite understandings of the (often fictionalised) British past. In terms of reception, a text's potential meanings are always in motion: this is especially true for drama, which was encountered as live performance, printed texts, and printed texts read aloud in company.

To accommodate this mutability my research incorporates diverse methodologies, including repertory studies, 'lost' drama, print history and the materiality of performance. Several of these approaches are especially pertinent to the recovery of marginalised modes of drama performance, which are underrepresented in printed playbooks. I am currently completing a monograph on Mucedorus, the most popular play of the early modern period, in order to tell a new, parallel story about the theatre cultures of the era in terms of amateur, regional, and romance drama (forthcoming, Arden Shakespeare 2026).

This research has also led to the idenfitication of an important new piece of evidence of theatre performance, a fragment of a cue-script of Mucedorus. This is outlined in a forthcoming article with Notes & Queries (2025). 

My future research plans include a study on the material performance of the nonhuman on the early modern stage, and the development of a database of European early modern drama. 

Teaching

I currently teach the following modules: 

• Shakespeare's Fractured Britain (Y3)
• Shakespeare's Worlds (Y2 - co-taught with Dr Derek Dunne)
• Critical Reading Critical Writing (Y1 - convener/lecturer)

I have also taught the following modules: 

• Renaissance Prose, Poetry and Drama (Y2)
• Experimental Early Modern Drama (Y2)
• Poetic Justice (MA)

I have also contributed lectures to ''Star Cross'd Lovers'' (Y1)

I have been nominated for the following Enriching Student Life Awards:

• Most Uplifting Staff Member of the Year (2021)
• Most Uplifting Staff Member of the Year (2022)
• Personal Tutor of the Year (2023)
• Most Outstanding Use of the Learning Environment (2024)
• Learning and Teaching Collaboration of the Year, Most Outstanding Use of the Learning Environment, and Most Outstanding Learning Experience categories (2025)

I hold the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence from Roehampton University, and I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. 

Biography

Having enjoyed a varied career in a number of fields since completing a BA in Drama & Theatre Arts at Goldsmiths College, I returned to academia in 2012, undertaking an MA in Shakespeare Studies at King's College London and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. 

My Ph.D studies were funded by the Department of English and Creative Writing at Roehampton University from 2014-2017. This overlapped with a Teaching Fellowship at Roehampton, during which time I received the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence. I have taught a postgraduate module on early modern dramaturgy at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (2019). In 2019 I co-organsied with Dr Amy Lidster the Changing Histories conference, held at King's College London. 

I have been invited to speak at Southampton University, Oxford Univeristy, The Malone Society, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the Rose Playhouse, Wurzberg University, and Sussex University. 

In 2019 I was accepted onto the Disglair Lecturer programme at ENCAP, and in 2022 I received a permanent lectureship. I continue to develop my research into romance drama in the contexts of lost, regional and amateur drama. My current duties within the School include Senior Personal Tutor, Employability Lead, and Joint Honours Lead.

My monograph, Staging Britain's Past: Pre-Roman Britain in Early Modern Drama is published by Arden Shakespeare Studies in Early Modern Drama in April 2021. My new Introduction to the Oxford World Shakespeare edition of Cymbeline was published in Feb 2025, and my monograph on the play Mucedorus is forthcoming from Arden Shakespeare. 

Honours and awards

• Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence (Roehampton University, 2019)
• Society for Renaissance Studies conference grant (2019)
• British Shakespeare Association conference grant (2019)
• Liz Ketterer Trust Travel Bursary (BritGrad conference, 2016)

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2018)

Academic positions

• 2019: present: Bright Lecturer, Cardiff University
• 2019: visiting and guest lecturer, Central School of Dance and Drama, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Roehampton University
• 2017 - 2018: Teaching Fellow, Roehampton University