Dr. Joshua Held

Associate 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 has taught at Southeastern Oklahoma State University since 2023 and was voted the university’s 2025–2026 Professor of the Year. He teaches and researches early modern English literature with a focus on Shakespeare and Milton, and has published two dozen articles on several interrelated topics: 1) religion and literature, 2) race and gender, 3) classical reception, 4) textual cruxes.

His most recent book, _Milton’s Pauline Universalism: Theologies of Race in Early Modern England_ (Oxford Univ. Press, 2026), shows Milton using Paul to analyze the relation among individual, society, and the divine.

An earlier book, _Bold Conscience: Luther to Shakespeare to Milton_ (Univ. of Alabama Press, 2023), chronicles a shift of political conscience in early modern England from restraint to self-assertion.

He is working on three monographs:
1 | “Figuring Conscience in Shakespeare’s England: Rhetoric and Religion” examines conscience as expressed in literary works through rhetorical figures such as metaphor and prosopopoeia.
2 | “Virgilian Sympathies in Early Modern England: Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton” shows early modern poets using or sometimes resisting Virgilian pathos.
3 | “Revising Tragic Women: Shakespearean Gender and Textuality” analyzes the instability of Shakespeare’s texts to reveal tinkering with female characters.

Also at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Dr. Held coordinates the Parsons Scholars, advises English Education majors, and serves as University Mentor for student teachers in English Language Arts.

Courses Taught

CV

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