I'm an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania. You can see my website at http://www.english.upenn.edu/~zlesser I teach Shakespeare and Renaissance literature, as well as the history of the book and print culture.
Articles
Early Modern Digital Scholarship & DEEP: Database of Early English Playbooks (with Alan B. Farmer), Literature Compass (2008)
This paper discusses recent trends in digital resources for early modern literary studies, as well...
The First Literary Hamlet and the Commonplacing of Professional Plays (with Peter Stallybrass), Shakespeare Quarterly (2008)
Considers the first ("bad") quarto of Hamlet as Shakespeare's first literary drama, in the context...
Mystic Ciphers: Shakespeare and Intelligent Design: A Response to Nancy Glazener, American Literary History (2007)
A discussion of the Shakespeare "authorship controversy" in relation to the "debate" over evolution and...
Tragical-Comical-Pastoral-Colonial: Economic Sovereignty, Globalization, and the Form of Tragicomedy, ELH (2007)
I examine the politics of tragicomedy by focusing on its 1620s shift from pastoral to...
Structures of Popularity in the Early Modern Book Trade (with Alan B. Farmer), Shakespeare Quarterly (2005)
Continues the discussion in "The Popularity of Playbooks Revisited," with a rejoinder to Peter W.M....
Contributions to Books
Playbooks, The Oxford History of Popular Print Culture, vol 1: Britain and Ireland to 1660 (2011)
The history of playbooks in early modern England, for a general readership.
Canons and Classics: Publishing Drama in Caroline England (with Alan B. Farmer), Localizing Caroline Drama, 1625–1642 (2006)
The publication of playbooks in the 1630s helped to shape a distinctive culture of Caroline...
Copyright, Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature (2006)
Encyclopedia entry on the history of copyright.
Typographic Nostalgia: Playreading, Popularity and the Meanings of Black Letter, The Book of the Play: Playwrights, Stationers, and Readers in Early Modern England (2006)
William Shakespeare - The Life, Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature (2006)
Encyclopedia entry on the life of William Shakespeare.