Edel Semple

I joined UCC in 2012 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Shakespeare Studies in 2024. My research focuses on three areas: women in early modern drama; gender in Shakespeare on screen; Shakespeare biofiction. I am an experienced editor and collaborator; at present, I am co-editing my fourth collection, a major critical volume The Palgrave Handbook of Shakespearean Biofiction (forthcoming 2026), with Katherine Scheil. I have presented my research across Ireland, the UK, Europe, and North America. I am passionate about teaching; my contributions were recognised in 2022 with a UCC President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Research Interests
My research expertise encompasses three interrelated areas: women in early modern drama; gender in Shakespeare on screen; Shakespeare biofiction. My research advances knowledge in my discipline by bringing together different bodies of knowledge (Shakespeare studies, gender, film, drama) to produce new understandings of early modern literature and culture, and to generate innovative readings of their contemporary adaptations and afterlives.

My current research includes co-editing The Palgrave Handbook of Shakespearean Biofiction (forthcoming 2026), with Katherine Scheil (U of Minnesota), writing a monograph on Shakespeare on screen, and articles on adaptations of Shakespeare and the depiction of sex-workers in early modern literature. I also regularly review productions of Shakespeare on the stage and screen. In 2016, I was awarded an Irish Research Council New Foundations grant for the project "Celebrating Shakespeare 400: Performing Pericles, Prince of Tyre." My introduction to Pericles for the new Oxford World Classics edition of the play is forthcoming in 2026.

Research Grants