Prof. Brian Cummings, Ph.D.

Brian Cummings is Professor of English at the University of Sussex, England.

His specialty research areas include the English literature of the early modern period as well as humanism and the European Renaissance. Particularly since 2002, when his book on the literary culture of the English reformation (The Literary Culture of the Reformation: Grammar and Grace) was published by Oxford University Press and subsequently decorated as one of the Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year (2003), Cummings has been counted among the most internationally recognized and acclaimed experts for the English literature of the early modern period and especially Shakespeare.

In May and June 2011, Brian Cummings will be a guest in Munich as a fellow. Here, he will continue his cooperation with Prof. Dr. Andreas Höfele, Professor of English Literature Studies at the LMU and a member of the SFB "Pluralization and Authority in the Early Modern Period". In conjunction with Dr. Freya Sierhuis, a member of the Young Center, he will work on a project on "Passions and Subjectivity in Early Modern Culture". A conference on this subject will take place at the CAS in October 2011, with a related collection of essays currently under preparation. As part of his visit, Brian Cummings will give a lecture at the CAS on 20 June entitled "Freedom, Suicide and Selfhood in Early Modern Thought".