“I hope to provide an impression of how specular instruments changed the scopic regime of early modernity. My aim is to contribute to the conference's focus on modes of surveillance and observation by showing how popular narratives circulating around 1600 established mirrors as legendary tools of imperial monitoring in their readers' minds and how Shakespeare took up elements of their plot structures in Richard II and Macbeth."

Dr. Erin Sullivan is a Reader of Shakespeare at the Shakespeare Institute (SI), University of Birmingham. I spoke with Dr. Sullivan, to gain some insight into her career and how her research intersects with this year’s conference.