#  About 

 



       ![Jeffrey R. Wilson](/sites/g/files/omnuum9406/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2025-09/Jeffrey%20R.%20Wilson_0.jpeg?h=073b8ed2&itok=MiMb4NqB) 

 

 



 

 



 

Jeffrey R. Wilson is a Shakespeare scholar, Editor-in-Chief of [*Public Humanities*](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/public-humanities), and Director of the [Harvard Law School Writing Center](https://hls.harvard.edu/academics/hls-writes/writing-center/).

He is the author of three books: [*Richard III’s Bodies from Medieval England to Modernity: Shakespeare and Disability History*](https://tupress.temple.edu/book/20000000010577) (2022), [*Shakespeare and Game of Thrones*](https://www.routledge.com/Shakespeare-and-Game-of-Thrones/Wilson/p/book/9780367483920) (2021), and [*Shakespeare and Trump*](http://tupress.temple.edu/book/20000000010076) (2020). His research on Shakespeare and modernity has appeared in journals such as [*Modern Language Quarterly*](https://doi.org/10.1215/00267929-7933076), [*Genre*](https://doi.org/10.1215/00166928-7190506), [*College Literature*](https://doi.org/10.1353/lit.2019.0018), [*Shakespeare*](https://doi.org/10.1080/17450918.2017.1343376), [*English Language Notes*](https://doi.org/10.1215/00138282-9560210), [*Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England*](https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/savage-deformed-stigma-as-drama-tempest/docview/2134235195/se-2), [*Law and the Humanities*](https://doi.org/10.1080/17521483.2017.1371953), [*Disability Studies Quarterly*](http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/5430/4644), [*Early Modern Literary Studies*](https://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/journal/index.php/emls/article/view/395), [*Mosaic*](https://muse.jhu.edu/article/745262), and [*Crime, Media, Culture*](https://doi.org/10.1177/1741659014537655). His work has been featured on [*CNN*](https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/22/opinions/shakespeare-and-the-northman-wilson/index.html), [*NPR*](https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/aria-code/episodes/aria-code-brett-dean-hamlet-allan-clayton), [*MSNBC*](https://youtu.be/Iqp0dh0-k2w), [*New York Times*](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/us/politics/trump-presidency-election-loss.html), [*Salon*](https://www.salon.com/2020/05/17/is-donald-trump-a-tyrant-yes-and-no--aristotle-and-euripides-would-disagree/), [*JSTOR Daily*](https://daily.jstor.org/in-defense-of-polonius/), [*Zocalo Public Square*](https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2020/09/28/hamlet-suicide-contagion-teaching-shakespeare/ideas/essay/), [*Academe*](https://www.aaup.org/article/what-shakespeare-says-about-sending-our-children-college), [*CounterPunch*](http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/24/it-started-like-a-guilty-thing-the-beginning-of-hamlet-and-the-beginning-of-modern-politics/), [*The Chronicle of Higher Education*](https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-I-Write-on-My-Mobile-Phone/151631), and [*The Harvard Gazette*](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/09/how-jeffrey-wilson-makes-shakespeare-feel-relevant/). He has been a guest on series such as the Folger Library’s [*Shakespeare Unlimited*](https://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/game-of-thrones-wilson), [*Shakespeare Hour LIVE*](https://youtu.be/GBKB5f8w7AQ), [*Shakespeare for All*](https://www.shakespeareforall.com/bard-of-thrones), [*The State of Shakespeare*](https://stateofshakespeare.com/?p=7689), and [*Marvel Movie Minute*](https://trustory.fm/marvelmovieminute/thor-029/).

From 2022-25, as Instructional Design Lead in Harvard's Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning, he created courses for [Harvard Online](https://harvardonline.harvard.edu). From 2014-22, he taught the [“Why Shakespeare?”](https://www.keyterms.org/issues/public-shakespeare)course in the [Harvard College Writing Program](https://writingprogram.fas.harvard.edu). He has also taught English and Religious Studies at the University of California, Irvine; writing and theory for the Department of Criminal Justice at California State University, Long Beach; and courses on the humanities, museum studies, and the fundamentals of grammar at the Harvard Extension School.

Originally from Kansas, Jeff is a proud community college alum and holds a PhD in English from the University of California, Irvine. He lives in Lowell, MA with his wife, Allison, and two kids, Liam and Maggie. He is a trustee at [Merrimack Repertory Theatre](https://mrt.org) (even though performing on stage in front of other people is his idea of hell) and is the president of [Lowell Youth Lacrosse](https://www.lowellyouthlax.com) (even though he's never held a lacrosse stick in his life).