School of English

Dr Rosanna Cox

(BA, MA, Cantab; MA, PhD, London)

Lecturer  
Phone: 01227 823757 Office: NC 36
Email: r.cox@kent.ac.uk on leave, autumn, spring 2010-11
InterestsRosanna Cox

I am interested in the interconnections between political thought and literature in the early modern period and, in particular, the mid-to-late seventeenth century. My research focuses on the formation of political identities, the languages of political engagement and the relationships between gender, citizenship and hermeneutics. I am particularly interested in the works of John Milton, the ‘republican speculations’ of his contemporaries and the influence of classical ideas of statecraft in the formation of the commonwealth. I am currently writing a monograph entitled Milton and the Ideal Citizen: Versions of Liberty, Slavery and Political Identity, 1643-1660, which considers the the ways in which Milton’s engagement with classical models in a series of his texts from 1643-1660 developed in response to his attempts to imbue the people of England with a sense of their rights and duties as citizens against a backdrop of unprecedented political transformation.
My other interests include early modern ideas of education and the curricula and pedagogy of the universities from the mid-sixteenth century onwards. My next project will focus on early modern diplomacy and diplomatic protocol in the mid-seventeenth century.

Research Supervision

I am interested in supervising research on any aspect of the seventeenth century, particularly topics relating to political identity, gender and rhetoric.

Professional Activities

I co-edit and contribute to an innovative podcasting project, which disseminates scholarly research in new formats and on new platforms. The project is funded by an e-Learning fellowship at the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, Queen Mary, University of London (http://www.livesandletters.ac.uk/podcast/index.html).
I am a member of the Society for Renaissance Studies www.rensoc.org.uk).

Selected Publications

  • ‘John Milton’s Politics, Republicanism and the Terms of Liberty’, Literature Compass 4.6 (2007), 1561–1576 (doi:10.1111/j.1741-4113.2007.00494.x)

  • ‘“Enflam’d with the Study of Learning”: Of Milton’s Education’, Lives and Letters 1.1 (Spring 2009), 1-22 (http://journal.xmera.org/lives-and-letters-volume-1-no-1-spring-2009)

  • ‘Milton, Marriage and the Politics of Gender’ in John Milton 1608-2008: Life, Work, and Reputation, (Proceedings of the British Academy) ed. Blair Worden and Paul Hammond (OUP: forthcoming, 2009-10)

  • '"The mountains are in labour, only mice are born": Milton and Republican Diplomacy', Renaissance Studies (forthcoming, 2009)

  • ‘Neo-Roman Liberty in Samson Agonistes’, Milton Quarterly 44 (forthcoming, 2010)

  • ‘“Atlantick and Eutopian Polities”: Utopianism, Republicanism and Constitutional Design in the Interregnum’ in New Worlds Reflected: Travel and Utopia in the Early Modern Period, ed. C Houston (Ashgate: forthcoming, 2010)

  • Rosanna Cox and Robyn Adams (eds), Diplomacy and Early Modern Culture (Palgrave: forthcoming, 2010)

Book Reviews

Jason McElligott, Royalism, Print and Censorship in Revolutionary England, Journal for the Study of British Cultures 16 (January 2009)


School of English, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NX

The University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NZ, T: +44 (0)1227 823054

Last Updated: 12/05/2011