Taylor Hare

I am a fourth-year PhD candidate in English. My primary academic interests are in early modern literary culture, book history, textual studies, and disability history.

My doctoral dissertation, entitled "Reading Access: Disability and the History of the Shakespearean Text," brings book history and disability studies together to examine the various ways in which editors, printers, and publishers have defined and acted upon the principle of accessibility in the presentation of Shakespeare’s plays. By reading key Shakespearean book-objects through the lens of access, from the First Folio to the first tactile editions, this project reveals how implicit and explicit claims to accessibility have animated the Shakespearean textual tradition from its earliest moments, and it demonstrates the importance of comparing these claims with the lived experiences of readers. My scholarship has been funded by fellowships and grants from the Library Company of Philadelphia, Princeton University Library, and Smith College Special Collections.