Emily Mayne

Dr. Emily Mayne joined the faculty at Culver-Stockton in 2023. She teaches early British literature, especially Shakespeare, British literature to 1850, and the history of the English language, as well as core and general education classes on writing, research skills, and mythology. She is the current Chair of the English Department and convenes the Faculty Research Series with Dr. Robert Mevissen.

Dr. Mayne’s research expertise is in early modern British literature (1500-1650), especially the reception of classical mythology in the Renaissance, the poet Edmund Spenser, and regional drama and performance in the English city of Norwich. She has published articles on these topics in The Review of English Studies, The Spenser Review, and Early Theatre. Her first book, Locating Hercules: Mythology and the Dynamics of Allusion in Early Modern English Writing, on the reception of the Greek hero Hercules in Britain c. 1500-1600, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2026. She is the early modern editor for the Records of Early English Drama: Norwich collection.

Dr. Mayne is Assistant Editor of the journal Shakespeare Bulletin. She is a Board Member of the journal Research on Medieval and Renaissance Drama (ROMARD).

Originally from the UK, Dr. Mayne previously taught at the University of Oxford and the University of East Anglia. She has been awarded research fellowships by the Folger Shakespeare Library, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh.