
Dr. Joshua Held
Assistant Professor
English, Humanities, & Languages
Morrison 313
Education
BA, English and English / Education, Trinity International University
MA, English, Indiana University
PhD, English, Indiana University
Biography
Joshua R. Held teaches and researches early modern English literature with a focus on Shakespeare and Milton. His Bold Conscience: Luther to Shakespeare to Milton (Univ. of Alabama Press, 2023) chronicles the shifting of conscience in early modern England from a faculty of restraint—“coward conscience”—to one of forthright self-assertion. He has published essays in _English Literary History_, _Essays in Criticism_, _Modern Philology_, and elsewhere.
He is working on three monographs:
1 | “Milton’s Pauline Universalism: Theologies of Race in Early Modern England” argues that Milton uses Paul to stimulate his own thinking about the relation between individual and society. A portion of this appears in _Milton Quarterly_.
2 | “Dialogic Conscience: Figurations of Inwardness in Shakespeare’s England” shows that literary figuration unveils a voluble inwardness in dramatic and other texts. Some of this work appears in _SEL Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900_, and in _Milton Studies_.
3 | “Quarto, Folio, Race: Revising Sympathy in Shakespearean Tragedy” reveals Shakespeare’s tinkering with constructions of race through the instability of his own texts. Pieces of this project appear in _Shakespeare Survey_ and _Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies_.
At Southeastern OSU, Dr. Held coordinates the English Education program and serves as University Mentor for student teachers in English Language Arts.
Courses Taught
HUM 2223 | Modern Humanities
ENG 1213 | Composition II
ENG 3893 | World Literature in Translation (Honors)
ENG 4113 | Age of Shakespeare
ENG 4903 | Methods and Media in Secondary English
ENG 4980 | Film and Literature (seminar)
ENG 4980 | Modern Fiction (seminar)
ENG 5203 | Shakespeare
ENG 5403 | The Epic: Homer to Milton