Professor Siobhan Keenan

Director of Research and PGR

Corporate Services

Siobhan Keenan studied for her BA (Hons) in English Literature at Cambridge University and completed an MA in English and a PhD in Renaissance Studies at the University of Warwick. Her first job was as a Lecturer in English Literature at the University of West of England, Bristol, before moving to De Montfort University (2005) where she was promoted to a Readership (2014) and then a Professorship (2016). She served in various leadership roles at DMU, including as Associate Dean (Research and Innovation) for the Faculty of Technology, Arts, and Culture, before joining the University of Staffordshire as Director of Research and PGR in September 2026.

Professor Keenan is the author of 'Travelling Players in Shakespeare’s England' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 'Renaissance Literature' (Edinburgh Critical Guides to Literature) (Edinburgh University Press, 2008), 'Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare’s Plays' (Arden Shakespeare, 2014), 'The Progresses, Processions and Royal Entries of King Charles I, 1625-1642' (Oxford University Press, 2020), and 'Richard Burbage and the Shakespearean Stage: "A Delightful Proteus"' (Bloomsbury, 2025), as well as a series of essays and articles on early modern theatre history and women’s writing. She is also the editor of two topical seventeenth-century manuscript plays, 'The Emperor’s Favourite' (Malone Society, 2010) and 'The Twice Chang'd Friar' (Malone Society, 2017).

Professional memberships and activities

Chair of the Malone Society
Member of the British Shakespeare Association
Member of the Shakespeare Association of America
Member of the International Shakespeare Association
Member of the European Shakespeare Research Association

Academic qualifications

PhD, University of Warwick
MA, University of Warwick
Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education, University of the West of England, Bristol
BA, MA University of Cambridge

Expertise

Shakespeare

Research interests

Shakespeare
Early modern drama
Theatre history
Early modern women's writing
Adaptations

Publications

Monographs

Richard Burbage and the Shakespearean Stage: A ‘delightful Proteus’ (Arden Shakespeare). London: Bloomsbury, 2025. ISBN: 9781350245969. 272pp.

The Progresses, Processions, and Royal Entries of King Charles I, 1625-1642. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. ISBN: 9780198854005. 236pp.

Acting Companies and Their Plays in Shakespeare’s London (Arden Shakespeare). London: Bloomsbury, 2014. ISBN: 9781408146637. 272pp.

Renaissance Literature (Edinburgh Critical Guides to Literature). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780748625833. 282pp.

Travelling Players in Shakespeare’s England. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. ISBN: 0333968204. 250pp.

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

Keenan, Siobhan, ‘The King’s players and London’s Civic Drama: The example of Richard Burbage and London’s Love to the Royal Prince Henry (1610)’ in Early Modern Performance Beyond the Public Stage: Extra-Theatrical Forms and Spaces, ed. Jennifer Wood and Amrita Sen. London: The Arden Shakespeare (Bloomsbury), 2025. ISBN: 9781350367968. [pp. 245-61].

‘Politics, Satire and Caroline Manuscript Drama: The Example of The Twice Chang’d Friar (Arbury Hall MS A414)’. Notes & Queries, 64:3 (September 2017). ISSN: 0029-3970. [pp. 395-401]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gjx082

‘Shakespeare and the Market in his Own Day’. Shakespeare’s Cultural Capital: His Economic Impact from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century. Ed. with Dominic Shellard. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. ISBN: 1137583150. 202pp. [pp. 13-31].

‘The Simpson Players of Jacobean Yorkshire and the Professional Stage’, Theatre Notebook, 67:1 (2013). ISSN: 00405523 [pp. 16-35].

‘Staging Roman History, Stuart Politics, and The Duke of Buckingham: The Example of The Emperor’s Favourite’. Early Theatre, 14:2 (2011). ISSN: 1206-9078. [pp. 63-103]. Available at: http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/earlytheatre/vol14/iss2/3.

‘“Embracing Submission”: Motherhood, Marriage and Mortality in Katherine Thomas’s Seventeenth-Century “Commonplace Book” (NLW MS 4340A)’. Women’s Writing, 15:1 (2008). ISSN: 09699082. [pp. 69-85].

‘Spectator and Spectacle: Royal Entertainments at the Universities in the 1560s’. The Progresses, Pageants and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I. Ed. Jayne Elisabeth Archer, Elizabeth Goldring, and Sarah Knight. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN: 0199291578. 352pp. [pp. 86-103].

External profiles

ORCID