Will Hamlin
Will Hamlin teaches Shakespeare, Spenser, and Renaissance drama to WSU undergraduate and graduate students. He directs the English graduate studies program, is deep into research on early modern European literature, and is now the recipient of one of the most respected fellowships awarded to scholars and artists in the Americas.
Early in April, Hamlin was named a 2008 fellow by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation of New York for his work titled "A History of John Florio's Montaigne." He is one of 190 successful candidates, representing 75 disciplines and 81 academic institutions, chosen from a field of 2,600 applicants.
Hamlin acknowledged he was deeply honored to have been chosen for the fellowship. "There are few organizations for which I have greater respect," he said. "The Guggenheim Foundation has been supporting the arts and humanities for almost a century, funding poets, historians, musicians, and scholars all over North and South America."
Established in 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation offers fellowships to assist men and women who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts to further develop as they engage in research and artistic creation under the freest possible conditions and irrespective of race, color, or creed.
"Professor Hamlin's Guggenheim is confirmation of his outstanding work as a scholar," said Erich Lear, dean of the College of Liberal Arts. "That he coordinates our graduate programs in English is a measure of our commitment to ensuring that students have direct contact with our very best faculty."
Congratulating Hamlin on receiving the highly competitive and prestigious fellowship, WSU provost and executive vice president Robert Bates said, "It is also a significant honor for our university; Guggenheim awards are among the relatively few fellowships in the arts and humanities that count towards Association of American Universities membership. I'm very pleased to recognize this fine faculty achievement."
Hamlin is currently engaged in a research project on the writings of 16th-century French essayist Michel de Montaigne and how the work was received by English readers of the 17th century.
Montaigne was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance and invented the essay as a literary genre. He became famous for his ability to inject serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes and autobiographical information.
One of his contemporaries, William Shakespeare, borrowed from Montaigne in his play The Tempest. John Florio, known in Italian as Giovanni Florio, an accomplished linguist, lexicographer, royal language tutor at the court of James I, and probable acquaintance of Shakespeare, translated Montaigne's writing from French to English.
Much of Hamlin's research takes places in major libraries in Europe and the U.S. He studies primary sources to discover how Montaigne was understood by his contemporaries.
"Examining marginal annotations, diary references, commonplace books, and personal letters helps tell me what ordinary English readers of the time found interesting about Montaigne," said Hamlin. "And I can then juxtapose this information against the opinions of major authors—Jonson, Burton, Webster, Dryden, and others."
By contrasting popular reactions with those of scholars and professional writers of the time, Hamlin hopes to better understand the evolution of literary judgment and taste during the period.
Hamlin's continuing research will focus on recording reactions to Montaigne's work with reference to the social class of his readers.
With funding from the Guggenheim fellowship, Hamlin's travel plans include trips to Paris, Great Britain, Los Angeles, New York, and Boston.
"Being a professor is kind of an odyssey," said Hamlin. "You never know where you are going to end up."
One of the things Hamlin really enjoys, though, is working with students. "It is a tremendous privilege to be a college professor and have the ability to work with this material and bright young people every day," he said.
Hamlin, 51, received his B.A. in philosophy from Carleton College in Minnesota and his Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington. Before joining the WSU English faculty in 2001, he taught at St. Mary's College in California and at Idaho State University. In April he was named Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor in the College of Liberal Arts.
Hamlin's articles and reviews have appeared in English Literary Renaissance, Renaissance Quarterly, Montaigne Studies, SEL, Journal of the History of Ideas, Early Modern Literary Studies, Comparative Drama, and Shakespeare Studies. He has received a research fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities and grants from the British Academy and the Renaissance Society of America. Hamlin is the author of The Image of America in Montaigne, Spenser, and Shakespeare (St. Martin's Press, 1995) and Tragedy and Scepticism in Shakespeare's England (Palgrave/St. Martin's Press, 2005).
The Chronicle, College of Liberal Arts, Washington State University