Cristina León Alfar earned a PhD in English Literature from the University of Washington in 1997. Her research interests include Early Modern Drama, particularly Shakespeare, and the intersections between literature, culture, gender, law, and politics. She teaches Shakespeare, late 15th and early 16th century English Drama, early modern English Women writers, and feminist theory.

Her new book project, entitled He Said, She Said: Shakespeare and Narratives of Marital Betrayal in Early Modern England, examines letters, legal complaints, and domestic treatises from the period written by both men and women in light of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline, and The Merry Wives of Windsor.  She argues that men’s and women’s conflicting narratives about marital betrayal give way to bonds between women that are formed by false accusations of adultery. The mistaken accusation of adultery in Shakespeare’s plays provides a particular moment of crisis that becomes an opportunity for women to speak their minds, to interrogate the inequitable distribution of power in their society.

Professor Alfar has served as Chair of the Department since 2005.

Selected Publications:

“‘Proceed in Justice’: Narratives of Marital Betrayal in The Winter’s Tale.” Justice, Women and Power in English Renaissance Drama. Eds. Andrew J. Majeski and Emily Detmer-Goebel. Madison and Teaneck, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson UP, 2009. 46-65.

“Elizabeth Cary’s Female Trinity: Breaking Custom with Mosaic Law in The Tragedy of Mariam.” Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Volume 3, (2008): 61-103.

“Looking for Goneril and Regan.” Privacy, Domesticity and Women in Early Modern England.  Ed. Corinne Abate. Aldershot, Hampshire, UK: Ashgate, 2003. 167-198.

Fantasies of Female Evil: The Dynamics of Gender and Power in Shakespearean Tragedy. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2003.

“‘Blood Will Have Blood’: Power, Performance, and Lady Macbeth’s Gender Trouble.” Jx: A Journal in Culture and Criticism. 2.2 (1998): 179-207.

 “King Lear’s ‘Immoral’ Daughters and the Politics of Kingship.” Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 8.2 (1996): 375-400.

 “Staging the Feminine Performance of Desire: Masochism in The Maid’s Tragedy.” Papers on Language and Literature. 31.3 (1995): 313-333.