Michael Saenger, Professor of English, teaches and writes on Shakespeare from a wide variety of perspectives. He is the author of two books, The Commodification of Textual Engagements in the English Renaissance (Ashgate, 2006), and Shakespeare and the French Borders of English (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), editor of Interlinguicity, Internationality and Shakespeare (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2014), and co-editor of Shakespeare in Succession: Translation and Time (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2023). He has been a Finalist for the Southwestern Teaching Award, and he teaches on Shakespeare, translation and early literature. He has also been published widely on issues surrounding antisemitism in academic life, and he is a founding member of the Steering Committee of Faculty Against Antisemitism Movement and he played a pivotal role in blocking efforts to promote antisemitism at the Modern Language Association.

He has been an invited speaker in Rome, Tokyo, London and many cities in North America. His bachelors degree is from the University of California, Berkeley, and he received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.

Honors & Awards

• 2019-2020 Invited Academic Visitor at Cambridge University
• 2010 Visiting Fellow, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies
• 2008 Finalist for Southwestern University Teaching Award
• 2002-2009 Cullen Faculty Development Awards
• 2000 A.S.P. Woodhouse Prize 
• 1998-1999 University of Toronto Department of English Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award

Books

Shakespeare in Succession: Translation and Time. Co-edited with Sergio Costola. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023. Reviewed in Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, Translation and Literature, Renaissance Quarterly, Theatre Research in Canada

Interlinguicity, Internationality and Shakespeare. Ed. Michael Saenger. McGill-Queens University Press, 2015. Reviewed in Choice, Renaissance and Reformation, Renaissance Quarterly, University of Toronto Quarterly, Shakespeare Bulletin

Shakespeare and the French Borders of English. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Reviewed in Renaissance Quarterly, Shakespeare Quarterly, Year’s Work in English Studies, Shakespeare International Yearbook

The Commodification of Textual Engagements in the English Renaissance. Ashgate, 2006. Reviewed in Renaissance Quarterly, Review of English Studies, Times Literary Supplement, Sixteenth Century Journal, SHARP News, Rare Books Newsletter

Articles and Public Humanities Writing

“A Magnus Amator in Illyria: Shakespeare and the Memory of Plautus.” Memoria Di Shakespeare: A Journal of Shakespearean Studies 11 (2024): 45-67.

“Shakespeare and Multilinguistic Affairs: A Strategy for Reading Across Borders.” Contemporary Readings in Global Performances of Shakespeare, 58-72. Ed. Alexa Alice Joubin. The Arden Shakespeare (Bloomsbury Academic). 2024.

“Shakespeare’s Fathers and the Undead Renaissance.” Shakespeare in Succession: Translation and Time. Ed. Michael Saenger and Sergio Costola. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023. 219-238.

“When Discourse about Israel Becomes Antisemitic: A Guide for the Perplexed.” Co-authored with Cary Nelson. Fathom Journal (Winter 2023).

Finding Common Ground: A strategy for Combatting the Anti-Israel Movement in the US Academy. Academic Engagement Network, Pamphlet series, Volume 8. 2022.

“ ‘Do not call them bastards’: Shakespeare as an Invasive Species.” Palgrave Communications 2, Article number: 16065 (2016). ​doi:10.1057/palcomms.2016.65.

“Shylock’s Venice and the Grammar of the Modern City,” co-authored with Sergio Costola, in Shakespeare and the Italian Renaissance: Appropriation, Transformation, Opposition, 147-162. Ed. Michele Marrapodi. Ashgate, 2014.

“Interlinguicity and The Alchemist.” Multilingualism in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries. Ed. Dirk Delabastita and Ton Hoenselaars. English Text Construction 6 (2013): 176-200.

Reprinted in Multilingualism in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries. Ed. Dirk Delabastita and Ton Hoenselaars. Benjamins Current Topics Series, Vol. 73, 2015, 179-202.

“The Limits of Translation in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Shakespeare Survey 65 (2012): 69-76.

“The Birth of Advertising,” in Printing and Parenting in Early Modern England, 197-219. Ed. Douglas Brooks. Ashgate, 2005.

“Pericles and the Burlesque of Romance.” Pericles: Critical Essays. Ed. David Skeele. New York: Garland, 2000. 191-204.

“‘Ah ain’t heard whut de tex’ wuz’: The (Il)legitimate Textuality of Old English and Black English.” Oral Tradition 14 (1999): 304-320.

“Did Sidney Revise Astrophil and Stella?” Studies in Philology 96 (1999): 417-438.

Shorter Articles

“Shakespeare and Linguistic Change.” Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Shakespeare. October 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99378-2_4-1

“Scotland, PA.” Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Shakespeare. December 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99378-2

“Nashe, Tragicomedy and The Winter’s Tale.” Notes and Queries 62 (2015): 116-117.

“Nashe’s Pamphletarie Periwigge.” Notes and Queries 246 (2001): 261-2.

“Dekker’s Shoemaker’s Holiday.” Explicator 57 (1999): 73.

“Nashe, Moth and the Date of Love’s Labour’s Lost.” Notes and Queries 243 (1998): 357-8.

“A Reference to Ovid in Coriolanus.” English Language Notes 34 (1997): 18-20.

“Will Stephen Wrest Bombast from Falstaff?” James Joyce Quarterly 35 (1997): 152-3.

“Shakespeare’s Macbeth.” Explicator 53 (1995): 133-135.

“The Costumes of Caliban and Ariel qua Sea-Nymph.” Notes and Queries 240 (1995): 334-6.

“Manningham on Malvolio.” Shakespeare Newsletter 43 (1993): 67.