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Prof Alexander Samson
Professor of Early Modern Studies
SELCS
Faculty of Arts & Humanities
- Joined UCL
- 1st Sep 2002
Research summary
Alexander Samson is a Professor of Early Modern Studies at University College London. His research interests include the earlycolonial history of the Americas, Anglo-Spanish intercultural interactions andearly modern English and Spanish drama. He has edited volumes on The SpanishMatch: Prince Charles’s Journey to Madrid, 1623 (Ashgate, 2006), withJonathan Thacker A Companion to Lope de Vega (Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2008)and Locus Amoenus: Gardens and Horitculture in the Renaissance, a monographicSpecial Issue of Renaisance Studies (2012), as well as having publishedarticles on the marriage of Philip II and Mary Tudor, historiography and royalchroniclers in 16th century Spain, English travel writers, firearms,maps, John Fletcher and Cervantes, and female Golden Age dramatists. His book Maryand Philip: the Marriage of Tudor England and Habsburg Spain was published by Manchester University Press. An edition of Lope de Vega’s Lo fingidoverdadero also with Manchester and James Mabbe’s Exemplary Novelswith Modern Humanities Research Assocation are in progress. He runs the GoldenAge and Renaissance Research Seminar and is director of UCL’s Centre for EarlyModern Exchanges and the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters.
Teaching summary
I lecture on the literature, culture and history of early modern Spain and Latin America, offering courses on early modern Spanish drama (SPAN0057: Play, Players and Playing in Early Modern Spain), the works of Cervantes (SPAN0038: Cervantes and His World: Fiction, Empire and Subject), the early history of Europeans in the Americas (SPAN0056: New World Encounters: Latin America 1492 – 1700) as well as contributing sessions on the picaresque to the Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies’ core course (SPAN0015: Introduction to Spanish and Latin American Studies). At Masters level, I offer options on sexuality and gender in historical perspective (SPAN0068: Sex and the Body in Early Modern Europe) and the age of empire (SPAN0067: Global Empires of the Iberian World, 1492 – 1750).
Education
- University College London
- Other Postgraduate qualification (including professional), Certificate in Learning and Teaching in HE Part 1 |
- University College London
- Other Postgraduate qualification (including professional), ATQ04 - Recognised by the HEA as a Senior Fellow | 2018
- Queen Mary College, University of London
- Doctorate, Doctor of Philosophy | 1999
- University of Sussex
- Other higher degree, Master of Arts | 1995
- University of Leeds
- First Degree, Bachelor of Arts (Honours) | 1993
Biography
Educated at the Universities of Leeds, Sussex andQueen Mary, Alexander Samson joined UCL in 2002 as a Lecturer in Golden AgeLiterature following Research Fellowships at the Universities of St Andrews andWarwick. He is now Professor of Early Modern Studies.