College of Arts and Sciences

Associate Professor of English
Phone: (239)590-7180
E-Mail: rtotaro@fgcu.edu
Office: RH - 211

http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/rtotaro/

Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 2000
M.A.R., Yale University, 1993
B.A., Whittier College, 1991 

Research and Teaching Interests: Shakespeare, literature of the bubonic plague, early modern meteorology and physiology

In addition to teaching Shakespeare and early modern literature and culture, Professor Totaro has recently edited an interdisciplinary anthology of early modern responses to the bubonic plague and is conducting research as a Folger Shakespeare Library fellow for a monograph on Elizabethan meteorology and physiology. Both of these projects grew out of her first book, Suffering in Paradise: The Bubonic Plague in English Literature from More to Milton (2005)—a study of the power of the plague over bodies, imaginations, and literary production. Totaro also serves on the board of the Literacy Volunteers of Lee County and leads Novel Night discussions at the Fort Myers Barnes and Noble.

Selected Seminars

Director

• A Plague on Both Your Houses. Rebecca Totaro, director. Shakespeare Association of America (SAA). Dallas. March 2008.

Participant

• Vernacular Health and Healing. Mary E. Fissell, director. The Folger Institute Year-Long Colloquium, Washington DC. September 2006-April 2007.
• Sleep in Early Modern England. Garrett Sullivan and Evelyn Tribble, directors. World Shakespeare Congress. Brisbane, Australia. July 2006.
• Shakespeare and Science: New Directions. Carla Mazzio, director. SAA. Bermuda. March 2005.