Biography

Michael Booth is a lecturer in English at University College Cork, and author of Shakespeare and Conceptual Blending: Cognition, Creativity, Criticism.  This book explores the recent cognitive theory of “conceptual blending” as a lens for literary study, and is, according to its Shakespeare Quarterly review, “the most valuable application of blending to Shakespeare’s texts to date.”  (SQ, Fall 2020, 70-3).  He has been awarded a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship and a John Carter Brown Library research fellowship, and held both teaching and administrative positions at Harvard University including Assistant Dean of the Harvard Summer School.  He has published articles in Early Modern Culture and The Yale Journal of Criticism, as well as several edited collections.  Since moving to Ireland, Michael has taught at UCC and at Maynooth, and has appeared on RTÉ Radio 1.