By Georgia Jackson, University Communications and Marketing
Su Senapati, a professor of instruction in the Department of English at USF Sarasota-Manatee, published “Images of Women and Gender Identity in John Marston's Plays,” this year, with Lexington Books, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield. The book expands on scholarship Senapati began in graduate school and examines the work of the English playwright, poet and satirist John Marston — a contemporary of William Shakespeare — through a feminist lens.
“Marston harbored nascent feministic ideologies,” said Senapati, whose book traces historical representations of five prototypical images of women in literature before going on to examine Marston’s representations of female characters. “Marston was far ahead of his times in his assessment of women.”
Senapati hopes readers will come to appreciate the many ways in which Marston interrogated the misogyny of the Jacobean period in his work and created space for experimental constructions of fluid and flexible gender identities.
The book is dedicated to Sara Munson Deats, a distinguished university professor who served as Senapati’s dissertation director. It is available in hardback and e-book.