Expertise
Composition and Literature; Renaissance Literature
Research Interests
16th century poetry; Historiography; Iconography; Translations of classical literature.
Education
- BA: History; Literature minor, University of California Santa Cruz - Santa Cruz, CA
Dissertation/Thesis Title: Dictated Democracy: Standardizing the American High School, 1890-1930 - MA: English and American Literature, University of New York - New York, NY
Dissertation/Thesis Title: The Spirit and the Body in Legacies of Troilus and Cressida - Ph D: English, (2012), University of Massachusetts Amherst - Amherst, MA
Dissertation/Thesis Title: : Elizabeth's Fruitless Crown: Ovidian Poetry, The End of Tudor Genealogy, and the Incomplete Past
Biosketch
My Ph.D. is in early modern literature, and I research sixteenth century poetry’s uses of history and classical literature. Currently I have essays forthcoming in edited collections and have presented my work at a number of national and international conferences. During 2016 I was an organizing faculty member of the First Folio event at the Currier Museum, and I participated in the World Shakespeare Congress in England. My current book project explores Ovidian poetry during the last fifteen years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign as a method to reevaluate political uses of the past and to challenge paradigmatic historiography.
I serve as the Coordinator of the Core Curriculum for the university.
I am also an advisor for the Bachelor of Liberal Arts Program.
Selected Awards and Honors
- Dissertation Fellowship (2007) - University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Teaching Fellowship, English (2006) - Stonehill College
- Walter Chmielewski Fellowship (2002) - University of Massachusetts
- Joseph Langland Prize (2001) - University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Chancellor's Award for Academic Excellence (1995) - University of California Santa Cruz
Selected Publications
- Petersen, K.L. (2017). Shakespeare and Sententiae: The Use of Quotation in Lucrece (pp. Shakespeare and Quotation). UK: Cambridge University Press
- Dissertation Fellowship (2007), Fellowship - University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Teaching Fellow, English (2006), Fellowship - Stonehill College